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In 1974, the Professional Examination Service, which was by then independent of the American Public Health Association (1971), offered a program to register examina tion scores which would be made available to the examinees in obtaining reciprocity. In spring 1975, the revised examination had been taken by 1,441 examinees, and an item analysis was performed by the Advisory Committee for Revising the Profi ciency Examination for Registration of Sanitarians (Environmentalists in Tennessee). Both NEHA and the Conference of State Sanitarian Registration Boards wanted the examination to reflect changes occurring in the environmental health field. The Con ference met in 1975 in Minneapolis (at the NEHA Annual Meeting) and drew up six objectives aimed at improving the status of the professional sanitarian. Existing statutes were being analyzed to promote uniformity and reciprocity among the states. Also in the 70's, state governments began looking at professional registration boards to determine whether they should be maintained at taxpayers' expense, or whether they were self-serving activities that should not be carried on by governments. There were, in 1976, 43 states that provided for professional registration of sanitarians. The first "Sunset Law" which required that state governments review all licensing boards was passed in Colorado in 1976. It was the first of many. Therefore, the Colorado government was the first to review its licensing boards, and with a naive body of environmental health professionals not cognizant of the implications, there was only a weakly organized effort to defend the Sanitarian Registration Act and it fell to sunset in 1977. As information on the Colorado situation got out, states became concerned and worked to defend their registration acts. Registration acts were defended successfully in Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin. Because many sanitarians were losing their professional status, NEHA offered reciprocity to all those who had been registered if they applied within one year of the termination of a legislated registration act. The same opportunity has been offered to any environmental health professional in any state where registration has been discon tinued because of sunset review. Since the establishment of the bachelor's degree requirement in the passage of many state registration acts, even though a grandfather clause has been included to obtain registration for those already in the workforce, there has been much discussion on "equivalency" (substitution of years of work for education). In 1979 at the NAS Annual Meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, the Board of Directors considered this pro posal but maintained the requirement of a bachelor's degree in any discipline provided there were 30 semester hours of specific sciences. At the 1979 annual meeting, the Board accepted a proposal that would allow persons who had graduated from a curriculum accredited by the National Accreditation Council for Environmental Health Curricula to take the NEHA (PES) examination immediately after graduation, without work experience. Applicants with other degrees were required to have two years experience in environmental health (before or after completing the degree). Those with a master's degree from a curriculum accredited by the National Accreditation Council, or a doctoral degree in a related field from any college or univer sity accredited by an appropriate accrediting body, could take the exam without experience.
Also at the 1979 annual meeting, a committee was established to review the criteria of affiliates' nonlegislated registration programs, an outgrowth of sunsetted acts in some
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