Baton Rouge - After hours of emotional testimony from home owners, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of SB 257, which allows residents to sue manufacturers, sellers and distributors of substandard drywall originating in China.
The vote came after homeowners testified about the horror they have experienced because of drywall from China. The panel also heard from toxicologists who have tested homes for corrosion associated with faulty drywall.
Saint Bernard Fire Chief Thomas Stone told the senators that the drywall in his home is causing his daughter to become ill. "It sucked up the primer, it sucked up the paint, now its sucking up our lives."
The bill was amended so that contractors would not be held liable for installing Chinese drywall. The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry opposed the bill, raising questions about who would be charged with determining whether drywall is problematic.
Meantime, federal environment officials have discovered that Chinese-made drywall contains three materials not found in U.S. made drywall. The tests by the EPA found that the tainted drywall contained sulfur that wasn’t in U.S. drywall, strontium at levels ten times as high as in U.S. drywall and two other organic compounds generally found in acrylic paint that were not detected in any U.S.-made wallboard.
On Thursday, the Senate Commerce Committee is set to hold the first congressional hearing into the problem of tainted drywall tied to extensive corrosion and health problems in Florida and elsewhere.
