CA Legislators Fight Paint Companies' Suspected End-Run Around Lead-Paint Judgment

BUILDER sibling Remodeling reports on California legistlators efforts to penalize paint companies.

More than a half-dozen California state lawmakers have introduced bills in response to what a Los Angeles Times columnist calls "a super-sneaky attempt by major paint companies to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in remediation for selling people products with toxic levels of lead."

The lawmakers dislike an initiative proposed for a vote by Californians this November called the Healthy Homes and Schools Act, David Lazarus writes. The initiative would have the state issue $2 billion in bonds to cover cleanups of mold, asbestos, toxic paint, and other issues. It's being touted as a way to help ease California's critical need for affordable housing.

But according to Lazarus, the initiative was triggered by 2014's $1.15-billion judgment from the Santa Clara County Superior Court that ruled that paint companies companies had marketed lead paint as a safe product even though they knew it was poisonous.