Steve

It does seem like AWS has you on the hook for a lot of money!!  That is the price you have to pay to keep all those cards current.  Dropping them to get your renewall fees down doesn't seem fair to you either.  It would probably be just as expensive, however, if you were to re-test  (even by yourself, locally) every year.  It would seem reasonable that AWS could consider giving a price break after you had some given number of their certifications under your belt.  I will broach this idea to the AWS Certification Committee.  But, please remember that The Certification Committee has no say in AWS Pricing.  There is a separate Pricing Committee for this purpose.

The sad thing is, that many contracts these days are requiring new Qulification / Certification testing of the welders each year, and even in the last six months!!.  The owners have encountered so much fraud and so many "Certified", yet incapable welders, that things are regressing back to the bad old days of "Certify on the first day on the job",  just to be sure that the welder really can "STILL WELD"!. 

Unless there is some specific contract specification that requires that your work record be attested to by a CWI, there is no general requirement in the Codes.  I am  third party QA inspector, and I have to accept work records when they are presented to me by a company that has an active / functioning QC program.  However, I can also avail myself of the provisions of the Codes (that I inspect to) that allows me to require requalification of welders who do not produce acceptable welds.  I have frequently done this in the past.  

The CWI signature does not always carry the credibility you would think is does when it comes to verification.  It depends on who is hiring you.  If you are self employed, you should be able to certify yourself.  As the employer, you are legally required to certify the employees in most states.  Now, you must also do this in a credible manner, and therein lies the technical difficulty and the continuing credibility gap.  It can be done.  I certified myself for many years as the owner of my own company.  I eventually got a NYSDOT Cert Card, thich required that my work record be signed off by a P.E.  I took pipe tests with a few contractors, and added them to my collection.  Some customers accepted them, others required a demonstration or requalification test when I got on the job, depending on the contract documents.  I kept a log book of my welding activities for many years.  This was only asked for maybe a dozen times in 20 years!

I don't think you are going to find satisfying answers to your problem here.  I think it is admirable that you are trying to do the right thing here, and I  hope you are able to keep up the high standard you are demonstrating here.

Best of Luck

Joe Kane