Nanny State of the Week: D.C. flexing licensing muscles at personal trainers

 By Eric Boehm 

A regulatory panel in Washington, D.C., could vote this week on a series of new licensing requirements for personal trainers, supposedly in an effort to promote public health and safety through government nannyism.

But a closer look at the panel charged with making the new rules exposes the real reason why regulatory boards flex their muscles with regulatory schemes like this one.

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FLEXING THE REGULATORY MUSCLE: The Washington, D.C., Board of Physical Therapists, which is writing the new rules, just happens to be composed of five members – four of which are required by statute to be licensed physical therapists. And that board has now been given the power to regulate – potentially even to shut down – businesses that are in direct competition with the board’s own members.

As Watchdog reported last week, Council of the District of Columbia recently empowered an obscure regulatory panel, the Board of Physical Therapy, to create a new set of licensing rules for personal trainers working in the nation’s capital. A vote on the new rules is expected to take place at the city council’s meeting Tuesday night.