Colorado Farmers Win Their Right To Repair: Week in Repair
Governor Jared Polis signed the nation's first ever right to repair agricultural equipment. Plus: Antitrust ruling favors Apple's control over its ecosystem.
In a first, Ag Right to Repair becomes law in Colorado
On Tuesday, Colorado’s governor Jared Polis, sitting in front of a large tractor parked in front of the Colorado State House, signed the nation’s first ever right to repair agricultural equipment into law.
"Farmers and ranchers can lose precious weeks and months when equipment repairs are stalled due to long turnaround times by manufacturers and dealers," Polis said as he signed the bill into law. "This bill will change that."
The bipartisan legislation, House Bill 23-1011 was passed overwhelmingly grants the owners of agricultural equipment access to the information, parts and software needed to carry out repairs on their equipment. It passed in the face of ferocious opposition from agricultural equipment makers including John Deere and will take effect beginning in 2024.
The signing was hailed by farming groups and repair advocates.
Rob Larew, President of the National Farmers Union, said “seeing a bill like this cross the finish line is a testament to the persistence of our members and the need for this issue to be addressed nationally.”
“I’m proud Colorado is poised to be the first state to ensure farmers have access to the stuff they need to fix their equipment,” said Danny Katz, the head of Colorado Public Interest Research Group (COPIRG), which lobbied for passage of the law. “For decades, if something you owned broke, you could fix it yourself, take it to an independent repair shop or go back to the dealer or manufacturer. Unfortunately, as more of our stuff, including agricultural equipment like tractors and combines, runs on software, manufacturers are able to lock us out, undermining the repair marketplace and leading to longer delays and inflated repair bills. Farmers should have the freedom to get their stuff fixed from whomever they trust. They’ll have that freedom when Governor Polis signs the bill.”
The signing followed passage of the bill by the Colorado Senate by a 44-16 vote earlier this month and brings to three the number of states that have passed some form of right to repair legislation: Massachusetts, where voters adopted a ballot measure ensuring a right to repair automobiles in 2012. (They later expanded that bill to include vehicle telematics data in November 2020.) Colorado Governor Jared Polis last year signed into law a right to repair power wheelchairs. Then, late last year New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul signed an electronics right to repair bill into law, albeit a far weaker law than was passed by New York’s legislature earlier in 2022.
The passage of the bill into law marks a huge victory for farmers, who have long complained about onerous and oppressive restrictions that equipment makers have put on service and repair of agricultural equipment as equipment.
In the last two decades, a combination of greater reliance on software-driven features, always-on Internet connections and over broad anti-piracy laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) have given manufacturers of all stripes the tools to all but lock out owners and independent repair professionals. Absent a right to repair, that leaves consumers - farmers, repair shop owners, and families - at the mercy of expensive and inconvenient authorized repair providers, and pricing that often pushes owners to upgrade rather than repair their equipment.
The focus now shifts to other states that are considering similar legislation. At last count, there were 10 states considering agricultural right to repair bills including Florida, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Texas, and Vermont.
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