From the 86th: Plumbing State Deregulation… Almost (and the Impact on Fire Sprinklers)

One of the more shocking and talked about events this session was what occurred to the legislation and laws governing the state’s 70,000-plus plumbers.

This all got started when the State Board of Plumbing Examiners underwent the sunset review process starting last summer. The product of that review was a recommendation by the Sunset Commission to dissolve the State Board of Plumbing Examiners and move the state level regulation of plumbers to the Texas Department of Licensing (TDLR).

The legislation to accomplish this move and consolidation was SB 621.  However, as critical end of session deadlines approached, the legislation hit a significant snag. Rep. Senfronia Thompson amended the bill on the House floor to extend the transition time to move the agency by two additional years.

However, when the bill went to a conference committee, the product of the two chambers’ representatives on the conference committee removed Rep. Thompson’s House floor amendment.  She  was not pleased and asserted that the Senate, “don’t think we’re intelligent enough to make decisions on our own.”  She pulled in enough support that the bill failed to pass.

At this late point on the final day for bills to be voted and without any other “safety net” bill out there the bill failed to pass 88-57.  There was even one last ditch effort to bring the motion up to reconsider the bill, but it also failed, thus sealing the fate of the plumbing board and plumbing laws in Texas due to the automatic termination provisions of the sunsetting mechanism under state law, which reads:

Sec. 1301.003. APPLICATION OF SUNSET ACT. The Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners is subject to Chapter 325, Government Code (Texas Sunset Act). Unless continued in existence as provided by that chapter, the board is abolished and this chapter expires September 1, 2019. 

The result, starting September 1, 2019 plumbers were set to no longer be regulated at a state level in Texas.  In fact, the entire 1301, Occupations Code was set to be effectively deleted from state law.

However, Gov. Abbott then intervened and saved the Plumbing Board and laws for another two years through use of an executive action. 

Gov. Abbott issued a disaster proclamation that due to rebuilding necessary following Hurricane Harvey as well as, “areas not directly affected by Hurricane Harvey,” that the plumbing board and Chapter 1301, Occupations Code, will continue to exist, ”until disaster needs subside or the 87th legislature addresses the matter.”  The end result is that plumbers and their regulators have been granted new temporary life until May 31, 2021.

The reason this is important for our interests in manufactured and modular housing, which is exempt or state or federally preemptive in factory construction process from nearly all of the provisions and requirements in 1301, Occupations Code, is that the assumption was in the absence of state level regulation, all plumbing regulation, would have then fallen to local jurisdictions to be regulated in what could have been a smattering of all different requirements and versions of the plumbing code.

But also, at stake is the provision from a 2009 bill that passed into law through Chapter 1301, Occupations Code, that forbid any city from being able to require residential fire sprinklers in homes.

Subsection 1301.551(i) says: 

• Notwithstanding any other provision of state law, after January 1, 2009, a municipality may not enact an ordinance, bylaw, order, building code, or rule requiring the installation of a multipurpose residential fire protection sprinkler system or any other fire sprinkler protection system in a new or existing one- or two-family dwelling. A municipality may adopt an ordinance, bylaw, order, or rule allowing a multipurpose residential fire protection sprinkler specialist or other contractor to offer, for a fee, the installation of a fire sprinkler protection system in a new one- or two-family dwelling.

Had all of Chapter 1301 gone away on September 1, 2019, this protection from cities would have gone away as well.  Which means we already know at least one of our legislative priorities coming in the 2021 Session.