(a) A licensed engineer shall not submit or request, orally or in writing, a competitive bid to perform professional engineering services for a governmental entity unless specifically authorized by state law and shall report to the board any requests from governmental entities and/or their representatives that request a bid or cost and/or pricing information or any other information from which pricing or cost can be derived prior to selection based on demonstrated competence and qualifications to perform the services.
(b) For the purposes of this section, competitive bidding to perform engineering services includes, but is not limited to, the submission of any monetary cost information in the initial step of selecting qualified engineers. Cost information or other information from which cost can be derived must not be submitted until the second step of negotiating a contract at a fair and reasonable cost.
(c) This section does not prohibit competitive bidding in the private sector.

Source Note: The provisions of this §137.53 adopted to be effective May 20, 2004, 29 TexReg 4878; amended to be effective June 4, 2007, 32 TexReg 2996