Consumer Groups Announce Support for Plastic Pipe Lawsuit; Accuse Gov. Davis of Putting Campaign Dollars Ahead of Families and Consumers.

News Editors

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 6, 2002

A coalition of consumer and business organizations today announced their support for a lawsuit filed against the State of California that accuses the Davis Administration of forcing families to spend millions of additional dollars on housing by illegally restricting the use of plastic pipe in new home and apartment construction in exchange for nearly $1.7 million in campaign donations by plumbers' unions in California. The plastic, known as "PEX," is widely used in the rest of the US, Canada and Europe for the safe delivery of drinking water.

"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."

Home prices in Southern California have skyrocketed. According to the California Association of Realtors, just 31 percent of Los Angeles residents can afford a median priced home, down from 35 percent last year. The median price of homes and condos has risen 15 percent in Los Angeles County over the past year, to more than $266,000.

Unions have opposed the use of PEX because it costs less and is less expensive to install than traditional copper pipe. In a typical new home, the cost difference can be as much as $500 per house, with proportional savings for condos and apartments.

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, according to Kevin Eckery, executive director of the California Coalition for Affordable Housing.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by pipe producers, alleges that the California Building Standards Commission (BSC) and other state agencies responsible for adopting the California Plumbing Code, missed the legal deadline for approving an updated code by more than a year and a half, and compounded their error by illegally removing PEX as an approved building material before adopting an updated Plumbing Code on May 2, 2002.

The BSC's action puts PEX in consumer limbo. Communities in California that currently allow the use of PEX may continue to do so, but any expansion would have to be approved by each local building department or city council, a daunting task in a state with nearly 550 separate cities and counties.

The suit seeks to overturn the state's action on May 2, and recognize the automatic adoption of the Uniform Plumbing Code, effective October 2000. It names the BSC and five state agencies that advise the BSC on code adoption -- Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), Division of the State Architect (DSA), Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD), Department of Health Services (DHS) and the Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).

By law, the BSC is mandated to update these building codes every three years, based on national model codes prepared by organizations like the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO), which publishes the Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC). The law gives the BSC one-year from the date of its publication by IAPMO to review the Uniform Plumbing Code and make changes needed to adapt them to California. At the end of a year, if the BSC has not acted, then the Uniform Plumbing Code automatically becomes law.

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, 2002, some two and a half years later, and more than one and a half years after their legal deadline for action.

The lawsuit also alleges that the BSC and the other state agencies violated the civil rights of PEX manufacturers by acting arbitrarily and failing to follow their own policies and procedures.

In August 2001, state agencies indicated support for the inclusion of PEX in the California Plumbing Code. The only opposition came from the California Pipe Trades Council, the statewide umbrella organization for the plumbers' unions, which suggested an environmental review should be conducted before PEX was included in the codes. Subsequently, the state agencies reversed themselves, using nearly identical language to suggest they didn't have time to do an environmental review before they could make a recommendation on the use of PEX in California.

In the end, the BSC ruled that an environmental assessment needs to be prepared evaluating the effect of PEX on the environment, but failed to require a similar assessment for any other proposed change in the Plumbing Code.

"This is especially absurd given the 2 1/2 years the BSC and other state agencies took to adopt the new code," said Eckery. "Even if they really needed an environmental review, which of course they do not, they had more than enough time."

The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. A hearing date has not been set.

The California Coalition for Affordable Housing is a coalition of consumer and business organizations dedicated to supporting affordable housing for California families. Members and supporters include the California Small Business Association, the Consumers Coalition of California, Consumers First!, the California Alliance for Consumer Protection and the Center for Public Interest Law.