The home inspector is a generalist. Like your primary care doctor who will refer you to a specialist as needed.
It’s not practical to visit each specialist, such as the cardiologist, dermatologist or neurologist every year without a referral.
The same goes for a home. Sure, a buyer could hire individual trades to inspect their home but that’s not necessary or practical.
Who would advocate for such a thing?
What I’m saying is that in most cases the HI is going to defer to an licensed electrician who is going to charge for his services anyway. Also since the HI is not inspecting the electrical system they should be charging less money.
Not me but certainly the IBEW sees a benefit in this law.
Then lets just get rid of home inspectors all together since every other trade is “going to charge for his services anyway” also. I don’t think you understand why the HI profession started in the first place.
Again I’m for home inspectors. I’ve used them several times when purchasing homes. I’ve worked with them making corrections that they called out as defects. I think that this law is just a way for licensed electricians in RI to steal some of the inspection business.
I sure hope the Plumbers Union doesn’t follow suit and demand we don’t flush toilets
The possibility are endless, HVAC contractors, plumbers.
It wouldn’t break my heart if I didn’t have to walk any more roofs.
Just throwing that out there. 
Good point I should have put roofers on the list.
Let’s be exact with this… It’s not the Electricians, Plumbers, Roofers, HVAC Techs, etc…
it’s the UNION’s trying to stay relevant in a world that will soon eliminate them from existence!!
People have been saying that for decades and they’re still here. I wouldn’t hold my breath. 
Barely. The smaller unions have either needed to merge with the “Big Boys”, or simply disappear.
Yes, I know this from experience. Not only me personally, but my family and friends too.
None of us want anything to do with the Unions for over 20 years now!
As for not holding my breath, I don’t, because I know you can’t build NY Skyscrapers, or (Detroit) Automobiles with independent contractors!
When I first started I had a friend who was a roofer. He would do the roof inspections for me for free and then it would all go on his roof inspection form so then he would get the business.
It was one of the selling points to use my company for inspections, “we use a licensed roofer to do your roof inspection” …
We don’t even have Home Inspection licensing in California. lol
Got a lot of wind and hot air! Most of it comes from your Governor!
Hey, we are under no requirment to walk a roof. But we do need to open an electrical panel to see issues in side of it! 
It’s interesting that the Union is behind it. Around here, Union electricians are above residential work and will only work on commercial and industrial. That would mean that those that are benefitting are the companies that they are against.
This is EXACTLY why inspections should always stay relevant… Requiring electricians to perform electrical inspections is like requiring the fox to guard the hens. Trades these days aren’t trades in the traditional sense… they’re sales positions. Scare the homeowner with some fancy words about some aspect of their house being out of code and unsafe, and out comes the checkbook.
As was pointed out earlier in this thread, what is the difference between the HI doing the inspection and referring it to the electrician vs the electrician doing the inspection?
When I used to do onsite inspection reports, my roofer would tell me what was wrong and then the cost, which I would then put on the form. Saved me time as I didn’t have to go on the roof and also gave the client an exact cost for the repairs.
The difference is the electrician has a vested self interest in finding faults. Faults that he can fix right there on the spot. It’ll even save you money since he won’t have to make an additional trip!
The ethical electrician isn’t necessarily the problem, although he could nitpick everything. “Seeing some discoloration on these conductors, I need to trim them back and torque these breakers down properly, estimate is 2 hours, $450.00.”