Mike Holt's Rating of the Electrical Industry - 2019

As part of my ongoing focus on electrical safety, we annually update our report that assigns a grade to U.S. States for electrical standards that are mandated state-wide. How does your state rank?

Criteria used for grading.
The following criteria are all required at the state level for points to be assigned for this report:
(Note: all 12 points are required for an A+ grade)

• The NEC^® edition adopted (range -2 for local to +3 points for current, 2017 NEC)
• Licensing and/or certification required for Apprentice, Journeyman, Master/Contractor, Inspector, and Engineer licenses (5 points max.)
• Continuing Education (CEU, CPC or PDH) required for license renewal (4 points max.)

What's NOT included in this report:

• County and Municipality adoptions. We recognize that there are many local adoptions, and that in many cases, county and municipalities adopt the most recent building and electrical codes ahead of their State. We commend them, but the scope of anything other than state-wide mandated requirements is beyond this report. We applaud all the states, counties and local municipalities that continue to set high standards in electrical safety.
• Enforcement or effectiveness. We are unaware of a way to track or correlate enforcement as it relates to rates of incidents or accidents.

Congratulations!
The following states have an A+ rating: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming.

We'd appreciate your feedback.
If you have any updated information that you feel would change our rankings on this year's report, please post your comment - we appreciate your input to help keep this analysis accurate and current.

The Chart below shows the rankings. If there is a green up arrow (⇑) next to the state name, it indicates an improvement in grade over the last 8 years from 2012 to 2019; a down red arrow (⇓) would indicate a decline.

For history and details of how grades are calculated, click here.
Note: All 12 points are required for an A+ grade.

Note: The grade for a state will reflect the adoption by a state for a version of the NEC, even if the adopted NEC is not effective as of the publication of this newsletter.

Click here for history and details of how the points are assigned.