Gov. Enters Plastic Pipe Fight

Somewhere along the campaign trail, someone gave Arnold Schwarzenegger a word of advice: plastics.

He evidently was listening. High on the new governor’s to-do list is a pledge to resolve this raging issue: Should builders be allowed to use plastic pipes to deliver water to new homes?

Schwarzenegger is embracing plastic construction piping, sharing the view of his building-industry patrons that plastic should be permitted as a less-expensive alternative to copper. Union plumbers, who were among the biggest benefactors of ousted Gov. Gray Davis, are fighting that view, saying plastic piping could threaten public health and safety.

The material seems innocuous. It looks and feels like brightly colored, heavy-duty Tupperware. But big money is at stake. And the outcome of the wrangling could affect anyone who buys a new house. It’s a classic Sacramento battle, waged mostly out of public view.

In trying to determine whether he can reverse a Davis administration decision that could delay indefinitely the wide use of plastic pipes, Schwarzenegger is entering a fight that has flummoxed governors since Jerry Brown.

He is casting the issue as one unnecessary regulation that hampers economic growth: It’s No. 5 on his list of ways to improve the economy, after overhauling the tax system, solving the energy crisis, curbing litigation and fixing workers’ compensation.

On his website, the governor promises to “work with the Building Standards Commission to adopt a sensible ‘PEX’ plastic pipe code to reduce the cost of building in California.”

Plastic piping “should be looked at without the pay-to-play nature with which it was treated by the previous administration,” said Schwarzenegger spokesman Rob Stutzman.

But just as Republicans accused Davis of bending rules on plastics to suit his donors, doubters suggest Schwarzenegger is simply siding with his own political allies.

“I assume that he is being responsive to the position of his supporters,” said Daniel Cardozo, attorney for the plumbers union.

California is the one state that has not approved cross-linked polyethylene pipe, or PEX, for general use in the construction of homes and other buildings, although several counties and cities, exercising their limited authority, do allow it.

Proponents say the product could shave $500 from the price of a new home. Builders construct more than 100,000 homes a year in California.

Without Sacramento’s approval, sales of PEX pipe in the nation’s largest market would hover from $5 million to $15 million a year, industry representatives said. If Schwarzenegger reverses Davis’ action, that figure easily could top $40 million a year, they estimate.

The main advocate of plastic piping is a trade group representing its manufacturers, local building code enforcement officials and home builders represented by the California Building Industry Assn. The group argues that the plumbers oppose PEX because it threatens their jobs, taking less time and skill to install than copper

“PEX is fantastic,” said Bob Raymer, lobbyist for the California Building Industry Assn. “It is crazy that it has become an issue. Everybody else -- we’re talking 49 other states -- uses this product. It drives me nuts.”

Plumbers See Problems

The plumbers, allied with consumer and environmental groups, contend that, even if PEX costs less, builders would pocket the difference. They say that, more important, plastic piping is generally less durable than copper and that toxins, such as termite poisons, can permeate it and get into drinking water.

Plumbers believe history is on their side. In the late 1970s, while other states approved the use of another type of plastic piping, polybutylene, California insisted that environmental reviews be carried out.

As it happened, the material began breaking and led to health problems in states where it had been heavily used. Attorneys for property owners filed a class-action lawsuit, and manufacturers paid a $1-billion settlement in 1995.

Plastic piping degrades more readily than copper as it ages and comes into contact with soil and sunlight, said chemist Thomas Reid, who represents California plumbers. “We’re not talking about rocket science here,” he said. “It’s pretty straightforward chemistry.”

At the start of the Davis administration, it did not appear that PEX would be controversial.

In 2001, Julie Bornstein, Davis’ head of the Department of Housing and Community Development, recommended that the material be approved. But in a memo to her boss, she noted a “small” potential problem: “Its use may be opposed by the Pipe Trades Council.”

She was right, and the small item soon ballooned. The union challenged the product’s safety. The Davis administration required in May 2002 that manufacturers comply with the California Environmental Quality Act, and produce a study assessing the health and safety implications of plastic piping.

Such a study could have taken years. The manufacturers sued to block the state from requiring it.

“We had no choice,” said Robert Friedlander, a Dallas consultant to the Plastic Pipe and Fittings Assn., based in Illinois. “We aren’t going to play the environmental impact report game, because it is endless.”

In December 2002, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavas concluded that the environmental quality act does not apply to products such as PEX, and directed the state to approve its use in construction.

The Davis administration appealed. Schwarzenegger’s attorneys are trying to determine whether they can dismiss the appeal. But the California Building Standards Commission, which has independent authority and authorized the appeal, is controlled by Davis appointees. Unless several Davis appointees resign before their terms expire, Schwarzenegger won’t gain a majority on the commission for two years.

In its suit, PEX manufacturers accused the Davis administration of being swayed by campaign donations. The plumbers union, known as the United Assn. of Journeymen and Apprentices, is one of the state’s richest campaign donors. It gave $1.7 million to Davis in his first term, and $1 million more to help the Democrat weather the recall.

Cardozo called charges that campaign cash had influenced the Davis administration “outrageous.”

The union’s donations became fodder for Davis’ opponents in his 2002 reelection campaign and surfaced again in the recall fray.

Joe Rodota, policy director for the Schwarzenegger campaign and once an aide to former Gov. Pete Wilson, laid out the issue for the candidate, using information from another former Wilson aide who is now the plastic pipe makers’ Sacramento consultant.

“It stuck out in my mind that this was a good illustration of what we want to change,” Rodota said.

Manufacturers Back Off

Friedlander, the plastic pipe industry consultant, said manufacturers have not tried to influence the outcome of the debate by making donations to Schwarzenegger.

And Schwarzenegger has not taken money directly from the California Building Industry Assn., the main lobby group pushing for PEX. But some of Schwarzenegger’s biggest donors are builders.

Orange County homebuilder William Lyon has donated $171,000 to Schwarzenegger campaign committees this year. Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren helped Schwarzenegger raise several hundred thousand dollars as host to a fundraiser this month.

Individuals and companies that belong to the Building Industry Assn. have given more than $500,000 to Schwarzenegger this year, according to reports he filed with the secretary of state.

Ward Connerly, a Wilson appointee to the University of California Board of Regents, also is involved in the PEX battle. His lobby firm, Connerly & Associates, represents the California Building Officials Assn., whose members were among the most vocal proponents of plastic piping.

Connerly sent a fundraising appeal to the association’s members last month as part of an effort to raise money to help Schwarzenegger retire his campaign debt of $4.5 million.

In the letter, Connerly contended that “special interests” had dominated building code issues during the Davis administration. Schwarzenegger’s election, the letter said, would mean that people who had been “locked out of the political process” no longer were.

“Under the old administration, the pipe trades union dominated,” Connerly said, adding that he hoped to collect as much as $50,000 for the new governor in checks of as little as $50. “At least now, the little guy has a better chance to participate.”