BY ROBERT P. MADER
Of CONTRACTOR’s staff
SACRAMENTO, CALIF. — A coalition of consumer and business organizations on Sept. 6 announced their support for a lawsuit filed by manufacturers of PEX plastic tubing against the state of California.
The coalition has accused the administration of Gov. Gray Davis of forcing families to spend millions of additional dollars on housing by illegally restricting the use of PEX in new home and apartment construction in exchange for nearly $1.7 million in campaign donations by plumbers’ unions in California.
PEX manufacturers are suing the California Building Standards Commission and other state agencies responsible for adopting the California Plumbing Code for not allowing PEX in the code (July, pg. 7).
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles by the Plastic Pipe & Fittings Association, alleges that the state agencies responsible for adopting the California Plumbing Code missed the legal deadline for approving an updated code by more than 11/2 years and compounded their error by illegally removing PEX as an approved building material before adopting an updated plumbing code on May 2.
“California families are being ripped off for millions of dollars in the name of politics,” said Jim Conran, president of Consumers First! “Gov. Davis should be doing everything he can to reduce the high price of housing, not inflating prices to line the pockets of his contributors.”
In a Sept. 19 story headlined, “Plumbers flood Davis with campaign dollars,” the Sacramento Bee newspaper reported, “Plumbers unions, whose members stand to lose pay if copper water pipes are replaced by a less-expensive plastic known as PEX, have donated at least $384,000 to the Democratic governor’s re-election campaign in a post-Labor Day wave.”
Immediately after the BSC issued its decision in May to keep PEX out of the California code, the union gave $280,000 to the Davis campaign, the Bee reported.
Consumers First! was joined in its umbrage by the California Coalition for Affordable Housing. The latter group, said Executive Director Kevin Eckery, is composed of Consumers First!, California Consumer Alliance, California Small Business Association, Consumers Coalition of California, California Alliance for Consumer Protection and Center for Public Interest Law. The California Coalition for Affordable Housing was formed by the public relations agency for the PEX manufacturers, Eckery & Associates, Kevin Eckery said.
The PEX supporters say the plumbers unions have given Davis all that money to save itself even more millions. At current labor rates, on the 107,000 single-family homes built in California last year, California families paid an extra $53.5 million “Davis Plumber’s Tax” on new houses, Eckery said.
That kind of claim is outrageous and completely misses the point, said Dan Cardozo, lawyer for the California Pipe Trades.
“The bottom line is it is unfortunate that legitimate health and safety issues are involved in this product and all the state is doing is applying the same standards to their product that it has applied to all others, but it is caught up in these political charges and counter charges,” Cardozo said. “PEX manufacturers are seeking a special advantage that none of their competitors have had in California.
“The action taken by the Building Standards Commission was sound and based on legitimate health and safety concerns and was consistent with the way the state has handled all other plastic pipe products, and if it had done otherwise, it would have been unprecedented and illegal.”
The Sierra Club, the Planning and Conservation League of California, the Consumer Federation of California and the California Professional Firefighters Association have joined the plumbers union in calling for the BSC to conduct an environmental review of PEX , Cardozo said.
Cardozo denied that any quid pro quo influenced the governor. Any time a politician gets money, he subjects himself to charges of favoritism, Cardozo said.
The two parties in the PEX controversy can’t even agree on a timeline.
The most recent update to the Uniform Plumbing Code was published in October 1999 and included the unrestricted use of PEX. The BSC adopted an updated California Plumbing Code, eliminating all references to PEX, on May 2, some 21/2 years later, and more than 11/2 years after the legal deadline for action, the PEX supporters said.
Eckery said his collection of consumer groups had thought about filing a brief as an intervener in the case, but the judge would not welcome it.
Cardozo said the version of the UPC that approves PEX became effective in 2001, so allegations that the BSC had years to study PEX but neglected to do so are not true.
Cardozo added that the pipe trades, Sierra Club, Planning and Conservation League of California, the Consumer Federation of California and the California Professional Firefighters Association filed a petition for intervention, but the judge denied it, saying the state could adequately present its interests.
The PEX manufacturers’ lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, is set to go to trial in December.