Although continuing education and training is beneficial to professional engineers, I urge the Commonwealth of Virginia's regulatory and legislative bodies to vote against the proposed regulations in their present form.  With the national economy "in the tank", do the regulatory and legislative bodies of the Commonwealth want to go on record imposing additional expenses on engineers without considering other options?

Continuing education courses are expensive.  The course costs are expensive, as well as time lost from making a living.  Is VPI/SU or UVA going to provide free continuing engineering training, either in a classroom setting or a Webinar?  Don't think so.  A flat, set number of hours of continuing education hours must be balanced against the time, expense, and other burdens on professionals.

Regular attendance at professional engineering meetings or conventions offers training and interfacing opportunities between professional and government contacts.  In the case of private practiioners such as myself, each engineer's work is specific to the projects being handled, and a fixed "cookie cutter" continuing education time requirement may not be appropriate.  In my line of work (RF transmission and reception, antennas, RADHAZ, etc.), continuing education and training may not come from a CEU  course but from seminars given by equipment manufacturers or vendors who develop tools and instruments used in my line of work.

The NCEES has long recognized the requirement for engineers to understand computer languages and the use of computers to solve engineering applications.  Does a P.E. taking a CEU course to learn the "C" computer language make them an expert "C" programmer immediately?  No.   Does on-the-job training from an expert engineer and software author outside of the classroom help that engineer write workable software while simultaneously understanding the engineering concepts supporting the software?  Yes, and the employer saved the cost and time of a CEU course.  One will unlikely find CEU courses that teach the pitfalls of converting workable legacy mainframe programs (written in FORTRAN or some other language) to a convenient modern desktop environment.  Programmers write code, engineers solve problems. 

One situation where mandatory continuing education and training may be appropriate involves individual cases where a determination of egregious malpractice has been made against a licensed engineer either by a civil court or the Board of Registration for Professional Engineers.  Retraining is appropriate in this situation since most of the cases I read about involve failure to maintain responsible charge of a project, failure to correctly apply the technical skills learned in college or on the job, or conflicts involving the provisions of the Engineer's Code of Ethics.