Texas Bills Require Electrical License to Pull PoE [UPDATED]

Original Story: https://www.cepro.com/article/texas_bil ... id=2476150

Texas Bills Require Electrical License to Pull PoE [UPDATED]

UPDATE: HB 1141 was left pending in committee when the Texas legislature adjourned for the session. Multiple alarm industry representatives testified against the bill. SB 1004 cannot move forward unless the House bill moves.

Jason Knott · June 24, 2019

[UPDATED] If two recent bills had passed, integrators in Texas could have been barred from pulling Power over Ethernet cabling that carries more than 50 watts of power.

Two bi-partisan bills that were introduced earlier this year in the Texas Senate and House of Representatives would have required any wire supplying more than 50 watts of power to be pulled only by a licensed electrician. Specifically, House Bill 1141 and Senate Bill 1004 define the specific types of exemptions, including:

“The design, installation, erection, repair, or alteration of Class 1, Class 2, or Class 3 remote control, signaling, or power-limited circuits, fire alarm circuits, optical fiber cables, or communications circuits, including raceways, as defined by the National Electrical Code, that operate at less than 50 volts and that are not capable of supplying or controlling more than 50 volt-amperes or 50 watts of power;”

So, to put that in plain English, it means any circuit that supplies or controls more than 50 watts of power would not be exempt from the new law, and therefore would require an electrical license.

The bills also identified various locations that are exempted from the proposed law, including in cars, boats, railroads, certain factories and underground mines, just to name a few. Employees of telecomm companies and utility companies are also exempt.

The Senate bill was introduced in February and was sponsored by Sen. Charles Creighton (R). The House bill was introduced in January and was sponsored by Rep. Tracy King (D).

UPDATE: HB 1141 was left pending in committee when the Texas legislature adjourned for the session. Multiple alarm industry representatives testified against the bill. SB 1004 cannot move forward unless the House bill moves.

One of those who testified, Jason Potterf, technical leader at Cisco, tells CE Pro: "This is going to be a multi-year fight. We’ve seen a flurry of PoE targeted legislation over the past six months in multiple states, and anticipate next year will be no different. However we’ve successfully defended PoE from this attacks in all cases and believe it will prevail in the future due to its inherent safety features."

If the bills had been passed into law, they called for the PoE limitation to take effect starting Sept. 1, 2019 and apply to all installations after that date.

Given that low-voltage LED lighting has revolutionized that lighting industry, making it easy for low-voltage integrators to install lighting fixtures, it is not surprising to see this sort of backlash legislation cropping up.

CEDIA’s government affairs division, led by Darren Reaman, tracks restrictive legislation like this around the U.S.

Except that most POE specs are less than 50 W of power per circuit. 802.3af-2003 is limited to 15.4 W per port, which means per cable. 802.3at-2009 (POE Plus) is 25.5 W.

IEEE 802.3bt (2018) will do over 50 W, but it's meant for industrial applications, as far as I can tell.

So for almost any residential POE application, this should not apply. On the other hand, the LV contractor for my house also pulled the cables to provide power to my Lutron roller shades. And those might very well be 50 W, especially for the larger rollers. The spec I just looked at calls out wire sizes, not amperages or watts.

I don't know whether this would apply to DIY -- it (likely) wouldn't apply here in Illinois as local code and insurance regulations allow the homeowner to do electrical. That said, this doesn't supersede code when it comes time to pass an inspection for sale, so the work has to be done to code one way or another.

In Chicago, electrical code requires that low voltage wiring be in conduit (even non-PoE Ethernet and teleco wiring.) For some reason, they're extra cautious about fires in Chicago.

Doesn't Chicago require ANY wiring to be in conduit? I don't think it's a safety issue. I think it's a union perk dating back to the Daley era.

Doesn't Chicago require ANY wiring to be in conduit? I don't think it's a safety issue. I think it's a union perk dating back to the Daley era.

I think we're saying the same thing--I don't think wire without voltage would be very useful.