ProPublica teamed with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune to put out an important investigative piece on drywall a few days ago -- "Tainted Chinese Drywall Concerns Went Unreported for Two Years."
The article, by Joaquin Sapien and Aaron Kessler, reports that:
A leading East Coast homebuilder learned four years ago that the Chinese-manufactured drywall it had installed in several Florida homes was emitting foul odors, according to documents obtained by ProPublica and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
The company, WCI Communities, was so concerned that it started planning to tear out the material and rebuild the houses. But it never disclosed the problem to the bulk of its customers or to government authorities.
The evidence comes mainly through a series of emails between several companies in the building process. The article said the documents were from ongoing lawsuits; subsequent articles have said explicitly that the documents have been released by Victor Diaz, an attorney representing homeowners in Florida.
It's early yet in this process. But it strikes me that there may be a useful lesson coming here in the value of the common law system as a complement to the regulatory system. Plaintiffs' attorneys, it appears, have uncovered a development that federal regulators had not found (or certainly had not made public).
There's ideally a side-by-side, cooperative place for the regulatory and tort systems. The role of the common law system is particularly important when the regulatory side is weak, though. We've said previously that we think the Consumer Product Safety Commission's response to the toxic drywall matter has been too slow. It's also important to note that the agency has a small budget and a small staff, and more and more products to monitor. The CPSC has fewer employees today than it did pre-Reagan. It needs all the help it can get.
Showing 2,824 results
Ben Somberg | June 3, 2010
ProPublica teamed with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune to put out an important investigative piece on drywall a few days ago — “Tainted Chinese Drywall Concerns Went Unreported for Two Years.” The article, by Joaquin Sapien and Aaron Kessler, reports that: A leading East Coast homebuilder learned four years ago that the Chinese-manufactured drywall it had installed […]
Yee Huang | June 3, 2010
EPA and a coalition of environmental groups recently settled ongoing litigation related to the regulation of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). The litigation dates back to 2003, when EPA finally proposed comprehensive regulation of CAFOs, and it centers on what actually constitutes a CAFO. The original Clean Water Act labeled CAFOs as point sources that require a […]
Alyson Flournoy | June 2, 2010
In following the oil spill disaster, it can be hard to think beyond the control effort du jour to the bigger picture. I was riveted by the latest of BP’s seven failed efforts to stop the flow of oil, hoping it would succeed and that the underwater tornado of oil devastating the Gulf, the coast, […]
Daniel Farber | June 1, 2010
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. We’ve known all along that offshore drilling in the Gulf placed at risk exceptionally valuable and sensitive coastal areas. We need look no further than a forty-year-old court decision on Gulf oil drilling, which made the dangers abundantly clear. In 1971, President Nixon announced a new energy plan involving greatly expanded […]
Ben Somberg | May 28, 2010
The Albany Times Union had a nifty, if depressing, scoop over the weekend in “Paterson bottling up mercury ban at plant“: Efforts by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to ban mercury-tainted coal fly ash used by a Ravena cement plant have been bottled up for more than 19 months in a special regulations review […]
Matt Shudtz | May 27, 2010
EPA today announced (pdf) that it will begin a general practice of reviewing – and likely rejecting – confidentiality claims regarding chemical identities and supporting data in health and safety studies submitted to the agency under TSCA. The news is long overdue, but very welcome. One of Congress’s primary goals in drafting TSCA was to create […]
Alejandro Camacho | May 27, 2010
Even if a climate change bill like Kerry-Lieberman were to become law, the effects of climate change will still be dramatic, making adaptation a crucial complement to mitigation activities for addressing climate change. As specialists on local conditions with the capacity to innovate at a smaller scale, state and local authorities need to retain the authority […]
Frank Ackerman | May 26, 2010
Cross-posted from Triple Crisis. Despite talk of a moratorium, the Interior Department’s Minerals and Management Service is still granting waivers from environmental review for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, including wells in very deep water. Until last month, most of us never thought about the risk that one of those huge offshore rigs […]
Joel A. Mintz | May 25, 2010
The recent horrific events in the Gulf of Mexico have presented immense challenges to the Obama administration and many of the federal career officials who are responsible for regulating the safety of offshore oil extraction and responding to spills like the one that continues to gush from the remains of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig […]