He's being asked to pay a fine, take an ethics course, and admit to dishonesty--because during the period when the license was lapsed, he still put "professional engineer" after his name.
It sounds like this is happening because some people are mad at him, and not because this is a serious violation that a licensing board would ordinarily punish.
I could just as easily read that as someone who no longer practices using their license to give weight to their activism, and then it turns out they didn't even bother to actually keep up that license that they were using to get people to listen to them.
If guess it probably mostly depends on if your think the lapsed license is a legitimate accident or a sign of indifference. Assuming the board is in fact usually forgiving on lapses as is suggested here.
"It's easy to find a stick to beat a dog"
"Show me the man, I'll show you the crime"
Or you could just click on the blog header and read its “about” statement, which would only take a couple of minutes.
Because Mr. Marohn criticizes standard road engineering practices he has evidently developed enemies within the engineering profession. Some of these enemies are retaliating by initiating lawsuits for calling himself an engineer during a period where he had inadvertantly let his license lapse.
Their articles have shown up here a fair few times, which I assume is part of what makes it interesting.