Trade Group Sues Over AQMD’s Rules on Paint

A national trade association has filed a lawsuit challenging recently adopted environmental regulations that would slash the amount of polluting chemicals allowed in many industrial and household paints sold in Southern California.

The rules, approved last month by the South Coast Air Quality Management District and scheduled to go into effect over the next seven years, would force manufacturers to reformulate nearly half the paint sold in the region to slash levels of smog-forming volatile organic compounds emitted by drying paint.

In a Superior Court suit filed late last week in Orange County, the National Paint and Coatings Assn. contended that many products will never be able to meet the new limits, that the rule-making was in various ways arbitrary and capricious and violated procedural requirements.

“We feel the lawsuit is without merit and are confident the courts will uphold our rule as the courts have in the past,” said AQMD spokesman Tom Eichhorn at the agency headquarters in Diamond Bar.