6 ms·

EPA Advances Farmers' Right to Repair

196 points by bilsbie 9mo ago

barbazoo 9mo ago
> Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advanced American farmers and equipment owners’ lawful right to repair their farm and other nonroad diesel equipment. > This is another win for American farmers and ranchers by the Trump Administration. By clarifying manufacturers can no longer use the Clean Air Act to justify limiting access to repair tools or software, we are reaffirming the lawful right of American farmers and equipment owners to repair their farm equipment This seems to be very specific to repairing diesel engines. I can imagine this is not the win for farmers that they're trying to make it sound like.
- MarkMarine 9mo ago
  Every piece of heavy off-road equipment uses a diesel engine. I think you’re not up to date on what a racket the big equipment manufacturers have going. If you want to replace an alternator… simple part, should be a 1 for 1 replacement done in 30min, you can’t do it because it requires a John Deer tech to program the computer. This is done so they can mandate you use their service people and their parts, or your warranty is void on a million dollar piece of equipment. And the service techs can be backed up during harvest, so you miss your harvest and your crop dies on the vine. It’s ridiculous
  - barbazoo 9mo ago
    I guess that’s what I was exactly thinking about I just didn’t know JD would use that very emissions control loophole. I’m imagining they behave like that for non diesel related parts too.
    - MarkMarine 9mo ago
      Doesn’t matter if it’s emissions control or not, they use these laws like a shield for their anti consumer, protectionist crap.
      - barbazoo 9mo ago
        Happy to accept that this is a positive thing for farmers.
        MarkMarine 9mo ago
        It’s a small step in the right direction of right to repair, which is the actual fix. The company should not be able to deny warranty coverage on a gear box because an alternator wasn’t put in by the JD tech and that is what they do. This is slightly better. Right to Repair would actually fix the problem. But I’ll take movement in a positive direction
idle_zealot 9mo ago
> The Clean Air Act has long crushed family farmers across America – but under the Trump Administration, they are finally getting the regulatory relief to break free from burdensome Green New Scam rules and focus on the vital job of feeding, clothing, and fueling America and the world Huh, interesting framing here. Did some clever Right to Repair advocate figure out that they could get pro-consumer action through by phrasing it as anti-Clean Air Act? I'm not too hopeful for this shift surviving contact with John Deere's counter-advocacy though. Remember the flip-flopping on sending ICE after farmhands and hotel/casino staff? That ultimately seems have landed on the maximalist deport-them-all stance on account of Miller's proximity to Trump's ear. I doubt there's someone with personal stakes so close to power advocating for Right to Repair, so the lobbyists will likely win this.
- bombcar 9mo ago
  > Huh, interesting framing here. Did some clever Right to Repair advocate figure out that they could get pro-consumer action through by phrasing it as anti-Clean Air Act? At least one of the excuses used by car manufacturers to not reveal details/etc on their engines has been that "modification could cause it to fall outside of emissions specifications." I don't see why Deere et all wouldn't try the excuse.
  - mothballed 9mo ago
    This must explain why when I shopped for a tractor, 25hp was a cutoff where prices change significantly. I own one with a 35hp engine detuned to 25hp to legally bypass emission regulation. Just a fuel regulator screw turned down and timings modified. The exact same tractor with the screw turned up is about 10% more expensive and has a DPF which decreases reliability. The uptuned model also has an ECU and is harder to repair, whereas non-emission model can be (is) almost purely mechanical.
    - mindslight 9mo ago
      > has a DPF which decreases reliability Also makes it so you don't have to avoid breathing the cloud of smoke when it starts up or grunts, nor get black shit caked all over your loader frame. Part of me wishes I bought >25hp for the emission system. Of course it's natural to always want more tractor than you have.
burkaman 9mo ago
Seems good but unlikely to accomplish anything. Manufacturers obviously don't want to make third-party repairs easier because they think they'll lose money, so if the EPA says one excuse isn't valid anymore they'll just find another one. This new guidance doesn't ask or even suggest that manufacturers actually do anything, it just says "hey if you want to help your customers repair stuff, we'd be ok with it".
- mindslight 9mo ago
  Exactly. My understanding is that the manufacturers interpreted the clean air rules as conveniently requiring them to use digital restrictions management (explicit or even just tacit) to prevent tampering (aka repairing) your own equipment. Low-emissions diesel engines then get hated on for the "EPA requirements", with the immediate bad actor corporations sidestepping blame (as usual). Removing the initial motivation / excuse isn't going to get rid of those digital restrictions, openly document the systems, nor provide the tools required to work on them. The way this is framed, it doesn't even sound like the goal is to affect this dynamic at all. Rather it's to create a loophole of "temporarily" bypassing emission systems, such that if you delete and get caught you can just pinky swear that it's temporary for a repair that you're about to complete real soon. So the only real goal seems to be implicitly rolling back emissions enforcement across the board. Actual right to repair action would focus on making it so individuals are able to self-repair the emissions control systems to function as designed. So this really just seems like yet another instance of a lofty idea being abused as cover for the destructionist agenda.
  - cryostasis 9mo ago
    It is not just hate because of EPA requirements. These engines are more complicated and prone to failure. Small time operations can not afford the expensive repairs combined with loss of income during repair downtime. As a result, only corporations remain or the few remaining owner operators avoid any engine newer than the year ~2000. These older vehicles also have the added benefit of having minimal electronics, sensors, and ECMs.
    - 9mo ago
CGMthrowaway 9mo ago
For all the things you can say about this administration's EPA, this is a great thing.
b00ty4breakfast 9mo ago
even when they do something nominally good, they gotta send it through the Propagandaministerium apparatus to glue on all the party-approved buzz words and various other bits and bobs so it reads like your grandma's facebook wall.
- Esophagus4 9mo ago
  My grandmother’s Facebook wall would probably be pretty reasonable if she had one. She’s actually pretty cogent for 90 years old. She does watch too much CNN though, winds her up a fair bit. Though at that age, your world tends to shrink so at least it gives her something to do.
- plagiarist 9mo ago
  Right to repair is such a wild departure from their usual. It doesn't fit with grifting personal wealth, diverting tax income to billionaires, privatizing services, executing protestors, or similar activities. Makes me wonder what fucked-up horror is hidden behind this.
  - shagie 9mo ago
    Politically, trying to exempt farm equipment from the clean air act to try to bias the rural vote to a more republican side of the ballot.
  - tencentshill 9mo ago
    It allows farmers to roll coal if they say it's needed for a repair. So environmental destruction is the angle here.
    - shagie 9mo ago
      TRACTOR PULLS: It's Not What You Think - Smarter Every Day 276 : https://youtu.be/VZ6_8WJ3mh8 https://youtu.be/VZ6_8WJ3mh8
  - p0w3n3d 9mo ago
    If the companies could sue you because you went to another store and bought something cheaper, they would, for sure
darknavi 9mo ago
> ...they are finally getting the regulatory relief to break free from burdensome Green New Scam rules and... One of the worst Trump-isms that will out-live him is how normalized name-calling has become, even in US agency press briefings. Just childish and shameful.
- stronglikedan 9mo ago
  People will remember him for different things, and what they will remember about him will say more about them than him.
  - b40d-48b2-979e 9mo ago
    You managed to say absolutely nothing in your comment.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
- NickC25 9mo ago
  Well, what's nice is that no matter the words Trump can call something or someone, the words that can be accurately used to describe him are far worse. Words like pedophile, (convicted) rapist, (convicted) fraudster, criminal, puppet, the list goes on.
devwastaken 9mo ago
Repeal intellectual property law. No more patents. No more owning concepts inherent to physics.
ddtaylor 9mo ago
I mean this failed with the automotive industry. Many different strong laws were passed over the decades to ensure that anyone could repair their car, you can't refuse to sell them parts, you can't sue them for aftermarket, etc. etc. The end result? You can't do anything to a modern car without going to a manufacturer and using their locked-in ecosystem entirely. They have been caught doing every trick they were told not to do and they get away with it.
- boondongle 9mo ago
  Ultimately in this case it's a courts problem and not a law problem. The only place where law might be the issue would be in limiting damages for the companies in question. It's simply easier for them to take all the extra profit they're getting and deflect lawsuits. From an American standpoint, that means the manufacturers are getting too much out of the deal and the only way to fix that is to make the lawsuits more painful. Because it's not like it's manufacturers vs. the public - it's really the manufacturers vs. third-party repairers AND the public.
- bri3d 9mo ago
  For what it's worth, generally in the US you can still buy a limited time subscription to the manufacturer's own diagnostic software for a reasonable price, for example BMW ISTA is $32/day, VW ODIS is $130/week, and Ford FDRS is $50 / 2 days. This is enough to complete most module replacement or upgrade tasks for a hobbyist, and still cheaper than dealership labor costs. There's also a standard for the dongles (which specifies a DLL export interface from a driver, amusingly) called J2534 so you don't need a separate hardware interface for each make, although to your point, the way the laws around J2534 were written was too lax and some manufacturers have realized that there is a loophole where only certain diagnostic tasks like module reflashing need to be possible over J2534. Also worth noting that reverse engineered software has generally not been majorly threatened by manufacturers in the automotive space; Forscan for Ford, VCDS and OBD11 for VW, and so on are all quite popular. Unfortunately "security" restrictions especially in the EU and the uprise of ADAS systems has made things a lot harder; most makes now have some online challenge/response cryptography (ie VW SFD) for diagnostics where previously they had offline login, and most ADAS and camera systems require extremely expensive calibration jigs (this is a valid technical problem, but with no incentive to reduce cost or make these systems accessible, they end up being comically expensive). Anyway the situation in automotive is way better than the situation in equipment and ag, so I don't think it's entirely fair to say that regulation was a complete failure.
hypeatei 9mo ago
If I'm reading this correctly, it's basically saying "the manufacturers interpretation of the Clean Air Act is wrong" and that's it? How does this move the needle on right to repair at all? Maybe it'll require some work on the manufacturers part to come up with a new excuse but that's it.
- shagie 9mo ago
  OCTOBER 03, 2024 - https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-demands-john-deere-explain-disgraceful-attempts-to-prevent-farmers-from-repairing-their-own-equipment https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren... > Boston, MA – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Deere & Company (John Deere) accusing the company of undermining its own “right-to-repair” agreements and evading its responsibilities under the Clean Air Act by failing to grant its customers the right to repair their own agricultural equipment. AUGUST 16, 2023 - The EPA finally refutes John Deere, dealership arguments against Right to Repair https://pirg.org/articles/the-epa-finally-refutes-john-deere-dealership-arguments-against-right-to-repair/ https://pirg.org/articles/the-epa-finally-refutes-john-deere... > On August 4, after prodding for more than a year by PIRG and our allies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent an on-the-record letter to the National Farmers Union in support of Right to Repair. The letter clearly refutes manufacturers’ and dealers’ accusations that repair access facilitates emissions tampering and therefore violates environmental laws. ---- Note that this started in the previous administration and the EPA was chastising John Deer three years ago on this issue.
efitz 9mo ago
Why EPA and not FTC?
HowardStark 9mo ago
After reading over the EPA letter[0], I can't help but wonder whether the final paragraph gives a "bad faith out" to John Deere and their ilk. You could disingenuously interpret the "increment of time necessary to effectuate the repair" to mean the time it would take an official John Deere service technician with a full suite of tools to make the repair. The following sentence admittedly muddies it a bit, but in general the suggestion that John Deere can still be the arbiter for when the machine can / cannot run without the environmental system in the loop seems like a significantly less meaningful change than what is described on the EPA.gov website. [0] https://dis.epa.gov/otaqpub/display_file.jsp?docid=64859&flag=1 https://dis.epa.gov/otaqpub/display_file.jsp?docid=64859&fla... -- It's only 3 pages, very quick read
BryantD 9mo ago
You don't have to read this comment, I'm just throwing down a marker for myself. I think this is a good policy direction. I don't like the rhetoric and I understand that this as much a political decision as anything else, but I'm glad to see it regardless. A year from now if someone says "you reflexively oppose anything Trump's administration does," I'll have this to look back on. (Shoes at TSA checkpoints too, btw.)
- daveguy 9mo ago
  Yup. Sometimes that bumblefuck bumbles into something good.
Animats 9mo ago
This, as others have noted is not a right to repair, it's a right to pollute. There's a push for agricultural right to repair.[1] That falls under the Federal Trade Commission, not the Environmental Protection Administration. That's about parts and tool availability for the whole machine, not just the Diesel power train. This new announcement has zero effect on that. Here are the controls of a modern John Deere combine.[2] Very little of that has anything to do with engine control. It's being able to fix that, and all the sensors and actuators connected to it, that's important. Diesels are rather reliable by now. [1] https://nationalaglawcenter.org/ftc-files-suit-against-john-deere/ https://nationalaglawcenter.org/ftc-files-suit-against-john-... [2] https://www.deere.com.au/assets/images/region-4/products/harvesting/technology-r2b004385-1920x1080.jpg https://www.deere.com.au/assets/images/region-4/products/har...
- jordanb 9mo ago
  One of the weird things is the way manufacturers used emissions regulation as an excuse to lock their engines down. Older engines had no computers. But computer control allows things that are needed to meet emissions like variable valve timing and whatnot. Also, engines are supposed to detect faults in emissions control systems and throw an error code. So they brought in ECUs, but they DRMed them. Now they said it's so people can't tamper with emissions, but they DRMed everything to the point where now you have to take it to the dealer for servicing. Do they need DRM to prevent people from tampering with emissions? No, they could have ringfenced it like some devices with radio transmitters do. Does DRM in the ECU prevent people tampering with emissions controls? Also no. There are people doing EGR deletes and whatnot on Tier 4 engines all the time. But they were able to use emissions as the wedge to do what they really wanted to do: make their equipment not third-party serviceable. By the way I think this also is a microcosm of the failure of the liberal order. The government should have cracked down hard on manufacturers doing this to begin with. The fact that they allowed manufacturers to turn their customers into serfs "in the name of emissions" obviously just ended up discrediting emissions control.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
tancop 9mo ago
i just dont see why anti tampering provisions are a thing at all. set rules on factory config and then do random checks and fine anyone actually running their equipment with emissions above the limit. whats happening now is basically you can get fined for using a tune that lets you break the limits in theory even if you never actually do it
smashah 9mo ago
Why limited to farmers? Everyone should have the right to repair, and it shouldn't just apply to hardware. That right should extend to software. Everyone should have the Digital Human Right to Adversarial Interoperability. Thankfully with things like browser automation, we are taking that right from the gatekeepers and rent seekers.
mrbigbob 9mo ago
This will go absolutely nowhere and personally am tired of hearing about some good bills that become nothing. The US will not even let the military have the right to repair. https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/us_military_right_to_repair_stripped/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/us_military_right_to_.... The US is beholden to defense contractors and corporations. The government cares very little if at all about the quality of life of anyone

196 points by bilsbie 9mo ago

> Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advanced American farmers and equipment owners’ lawful right to repair their farm and other nonroad diesel equipment. > This is another win for American farmers and ranchers by the Trump Administration. By clarifying manufacturers can no longer use the Clean Air Act to justify limiting access to repair tools or software, we are reaffirming the lawful right of American farmers and equipment owners to repair their farm equipment This seems to be very specific to repairing diesel engines. I can imagine this is not the win for farmers that they're trying to make it sound like.

MarkMarine 9mo ago
Every piece of heavy off-road equipment uses a diesel engine. I think you’re not up to date on what a racket the big equipment manufacturers have going. If you want to replace an alternator… simple part, should be a 1 for 1 replacement done in 30min, you can’t do it because it requires a John Deer tech to program the computer. This is done so they can mandate you use their service people and their parts, or your warranty is void on a million dollar piece of equipment. And the service techs can be backed up during harvest, so you miss your harvest and your crop dies on the vine. It’s ridiculous
- barbazoo 9mo ago
  I guess that’s what I was exactly thinking about I just didn’t know JD would use that very emissions control loophole. I’m imagining they behave like that for non diesel related parts too.
  - MarkMarine 9mo ago
    Doesn’t matter if it’s emissions control or not, they use these laws like a shield for their anti consumer, protectionist crap.
    - barbazoo 9mo ago
      Happy to accept that this is a positive thing for farmers.
      - MarkMarine 9mo ago
        It’s a small step in the right direction of right to repair, which is the actual fix. The company should not be able to deny warranty coverage on a gear box because an alternator wasn’t put in by the JD tech and that is what they do. This is slightly better. Right to Repair would actually fix the problem. But I’ll take movement in a positive direction

idle_zealot 9mo ago

> The Clean Air Act has long crushed family farmers across America – but under the Trump Administration, they are finally getting the regulatory relief to break free from burdensome Green New Scam rules and focus on the vital job of feeding, clothing, and fueling America and the world Huh, interesting framing here. Did some clever Right to Repair advocate figure out that they could get pro-consumer action through by phrasing it as anti-Clean Air Act? I'm not too hopeful for this shift surviving contact with John Deere's counter-advocacy though. Remember the flip-flopping on sending ICE after farmhands and hotel/casino staff? That ultimately seems have landed on the maximalist deport-them-all stance on account of Miller's proximity to Trump's ear. I doubt there's someone with personal stakes so close to power advocating for Right to Repair, so the lobbyists will likely win this.

bombcar 9mo ago
> Huh, interesting framing here. Did some clever Right to Repair advocate figure out that they could get pro-consumer action through by phrasing it as anti-Clean Air Act? At least one of the excuses used by car manufacturers to not reveal details/etc on their engines has been that "modification could cause it to fall outside of emissions specifications." I don't see why Deere et all wouldn't try the excuse.
- mothballed 9mo ago
  This must explain why when I shopped for a tractor, 25hp was a cutoff where prices change significantly. I own one with a 35hp engine detuned to 25hp to legally bypass emission regulation. Just a fuel regulator screw turned down and timings modified. The exact same tractor with the screw turned up is about 10% more expensive and has a DPF which decreases reliability. The uptuned model also has an ECU and is harder to repair, whereas non-emission model can be (is) almost purely mechanical.
  - mindslight 9mo ago
    > has a DPF which decreases reliability Also makes it so you don't have to avoid breathing the cloud of smoke when it starts up or grunts, nor get black shit caked all over your loader frame. Part of me wishes I bought >25hp for the emission system. Of course it's natural to always want more tractor than you have.

burkaman 9mo ago

Seems good but unlikely to accomplish anything. Manufacturers obviously don't want to make third-party repairs easier because they think they'll lose money, so if the EPA says one excuse isn't valid anymore they'll just find another one. This new guidance doesn't ask or even suggest that manufacturers actually do anything, it just says "hey if you want to help your customers repair stuff, we'd be ok with it".

mindslight 9mo ago
Exactly. My understanding is that the manufacturers interpreted the clean air rules as conveniently requiring them to use digital restrictions management (explicit or even just tacit) to prevent tampering (aka repairing) your own equipment. Low-emissions diesel engines then get hated on for the "EPA requirements", with the immediate bad actor corporations sidestepping blame (as usual). Removing the initial motivation / excuse isn't going to get rid of those digital restrictions, openly document the systems, nor provide the tools required to work on them. The way this is framed, it doesn't even sound like the goal is to affect this dynamic at all. Rather it's to create a loophole of "temporarily" bypassing emission systems, such that if you delete and get caught you can just pinky swear that it's temporary for a repair that you're about to complete real soon. So the only real goal seems to be implicitly rolling back emissions enforcement across the board. Actual right to repair action would focus on making it so individuals are able to self-repair the emissions control systems to function as designed. So this really just seems like yet another instance of a lofty idea being abused as cover for the destructionist agenda.
- cryostasis 9mo ago
  It is not just hate because of EPA requirements. These engines are more complicated and prone to failure. Small time operations can not afford the expensive repairs combined with loss of income during repair downtime. As a result, only corporations remain or the few remaining owner operators avoid any engine newer than the year ~2000. These older vehicles also have the added benefit of having minimal electronics, sensors, and ECMs.
  - 9mo ago

CGMthrowaway 9mo ago

For all the things you can say about this administration's EPA, this is a great thing.

b00ty4breakfast 9mo ago

even when they do something nominally good, they gotta send it through the Propagandaministerium apparatus to glue on all the party-approved buzz words and various other bits and bobs so it reads like your grandma's facebook wall.

Esophagus4 9mo ago
My grandmother’s Facebook wall would probably be pretty reasonable if she had one. She’s actually pretty cogent for 90 years old. She does watch too much CNN though, winds her up a fair bit. Though at that age, your world tends to shrink so at least it gives her something to do.
plagiarist 9mo ago
Right to repair is such a wild departure from their usual. It doesn't fit with grifting personal wealth, diverting tax income to billionaires, privatizing services, executing protestors, or similar activities. Makes me wonder what fucked-up horror is hidden behind this.
- shagie 9mo ago
  Politically, trying to exempt farm equipment from the clean air act to try to bias the rural vote to a more republican side of the ballot.
- tencentshill 9mo ago
  It allows farmers to roll coal if they say it's needed for a repair. So environmental destruction is the angle here.
  - shagie 9mo ago
    TRACTOR PULLS: It's Not What You Think - Smarter Every Day 276 : https://youtu.be/VZ6_8WJ3mh8 https://youtu.be/VZ6_8WJ3mh8
- p0w3n3d 9mo ago
  If the companies could sue you because you went to another store and bought something cheaper, they would, for sure

darknavi 9mo ago

> ...they are finally getting the regulatory relief to break free from burdensome Green New Scam rules and... One of the worst Trump-isms that will out-live him is how normalized name-calling has become, even in US agency press briefings. Just childish and shameful.

stronglikedan 9mo ago
People will remember him for different things, and what they will remember about him will say more about them than him.
- b40d-48b2-979e 9mo ago
  You managed to say absolutely nothing in your comment.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
NickC25 9mo ago
Well, what's nice is that no matter the words Trump can call something or someone, the words that can be accurately used to describe him are far worse. Words like pedophile, (convicted) rapist, (convicted) fraudster, criminal, puppet, the list goes on.

devwastaken 9mo ago

Repeal intellectual property law. No more patents. No more owning concepts inherent to physics.

ddtaylor 9mo ago

I mean this failed with the automotive industry. Many different strong laws were passed over the decades to ensure that anyone could repair their car, you can't refuse to sell them parts, you can't sue them for aftermarket, etc. etc. The end result? You can't do anything to a modern car without going to a manufacturer and using their locked-in ecosystem entirely. They have been caught doing every trick they were told not to do and they get away with it.

boondongle 9mo ago
Ultimately in this case it's a courts problem and not a law problem. The only place where law might be the issue would be in limiting damages for the companies in question. It's simply easier for them to take all the extra profit they're getting and deflect lawsuits. From an American standpoint, that means the manufacturers are getting too much out of the deal and the only way to fix that is to make the lawsuits more painful. Because it's not like it's manufacturers vs. the public - it's really the manufacturers vs. third-party repairers AND the public.
bri3d 9mo ago
For what it's worth, generally in the US you can still buy a limited time subscription to the manufacturer's own diagnostic software for a reasonable price, for example BMW ISTA is $32/day, VW ODIS is $130/week, and Ford FDRS is $50 / 2 days. This is enough to complete most module replacement or upgrade tasks for a hobbyist, and still cheaper than dealership labor costs. There's also a standard for the dongles (which specifies a DLL export interface from a driver, amusingly) called J2534 so you don't need a separate hardware interface for each make, although to your point, the way the laws around J2534 were written was too lax and some manufacturers have realized that there is a loophole where only certain diagnostic tasks like module reflashing need to be possible over J2534. Also worth noting that reverse engineered software has generally not been majorly threatened by manufacturers in the automotive space; Forscan for Ford, VCDS and OBD11 for VW, and so on are all quite popular. Unfortunately "security" restrictions especially in the EU and the uprise of ADAS systems has made things a lot harder; most makes now have some online challenge/response cryptography (ie VW SFD) for diagnostics where previously they had offline login, and most ADAS and camera systems require extremely expensive calibration jigs (this is a valid technical problem, but with no incentive to reduce cost or make these systems accessible, they end up being comically expensive). Anyway the situation in automotive is way better than the situation in equipment and ag, so I don't think it's entirely fair to say that regulation was a complete failure.

hypeatei 9mo ago

If I'm reading this correctly, it's basically saying "the manufacturers interpretation of the Clean Air Act is wrong" and that's it? How does this move the needle on right to repair at all? Maybe it'll require some work on the manufacturers part to come up with a new excuse but that's it.

shagie 9mo ago
OCTOBER 03, 2024 - https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-demands-john-deere-explain-disgraceful-attempts-to-prevent-farmers-from-repairing-their-own-equipment https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren... > Boston, MA – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Deere & Company (John Deere) accusing the company of undermining its own “right-to-repair” agreements and evading its responsibilities under the Clean Air Act by failing to grant its customers the right to repair their own agricultural equipment. AUGUST 16, 2023 - The EPA finally refutes John Deere, dealership arguments against Right to Repair https://pirg.org/articles/the-epa-finally-refutes-john-deere-dealership-arguments-against-right-to-repair/ https://pirg.org/articles/the-epa-finally-refutes-john-deere... > On August 4, after prodding for more than a year by PIRG and our allies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent an on-the-record letter to the National Farmers Union in support of Right to Repair. The letter clearly refutes manufacturers’ and dealers’ accusations that repair access facilitates emissions tampering and therefore violates environmental laws. ---- Note that this started in the previous administration and the EPA was chastising John Deer three years ago on this issue.

efitz 9mo ago

Why EPA and not FTC?

HowardStark 9mo ago

After reading over the EPA letter[0], I can't help but wonder whether the final paragraph gives a "bad faith out" to John Deere and their ilk. You could disingenuously interpret the "increment of time necessary to effectuate the repair" to mean the time it would take an official John Deere service technician with a full suite of tools to make the repair. The following sentence admittedly muddies it a bit, but in general the suggestion that John Deere can still be the arbiter for when the machine can / cannot run without the environmental system in the loop seems like a significantly less meaningful change than what is described on the EPA.gov website. [0] https://dis.epa.gov/otaqpub/display_file.jsp?docid=64859&flag=1 https://dis.epa.gov/otaqpub/display_file.jsp?docid=64859&fla... -- It's only 3 pages, very quick read

BryantD 9mo ago

You don't have to read this comment, I'm just throwing down a marker for myself. I think this is a good policy direction. I don't like the rhetoric and I understand that this as much a political decision as anything else, but I'm glad to see it regardless. A year from now if someone says "you reflexively oppose anything Trump's administration does," I'll have this to look back on. (Shoes at TSA checkpoints too, btw.)

daveguy 9mo ago
Yup. Sometimes that bumblefuck bumbles into something good.

Animats 9mo ago

This, as others have noted is not a right to repair, it's a right to pollute. There's a push for agricultural right to repair.[1] That falls under the Federal Trade Commission, not the Environmental Protection Administration. That's about parts and tool availability for the whole machine, not just the Diesel power train. This new announcement has zero effect on that. Here are the controls of a modern John Deere combine.[2] Very little of that has anything to do with engine control. It's being able to fix that, and all the sensors and actuators connected to it, that's important. Diesels are rather reliable by now. [1] https://nationalaglawcenter.org/ftc-files-suit-against-john-deere/ https://nationalaglawcenter.org/ftc-files-suit-against-john-... [2] https://www.deere.com.au/assets/images/region-4/products/harvesting/technology-r2b004385-1920x1080.jpg https://www.deere.com.au/assets/images/region-4/products/har...

jordanb 9mo ago
One of the weird things is the way manufacturers used emissions regulation as an excuse to lock their engines down. Older engines had no computers. But computer control allows things that are needed to meet emissions like variable valve timing and whatnot. Also, engines are supposed to detect faults in emissions control systems and throw an error code. So they brought in ECUs, but they DRMed them. Now they said it's so people can't tamper with emissions, but they DRMed everything to the point where now you have to take it to the dealer for servicing. Do they need DRM to prevent people from tampering with emissions? No, they could have ringfenced it like some devices with radio transmitters do. Does DRM in the ECU prevent people tampering with emissions controls? Also no. There are people doing EGR deletes and whatnot on Tier 4 engines all the time. But they were able to use emissions as the wedge to do what they really wanted to do: make their equipment not third-party serviceable. By the way I think this also is a microcosm of the failure of the liberal order. The government should have cracked down hard on manufacturers doing this to begin with. The fact that they allowed manufacturers to turn their customers into serfs "in the name of emissions" obviously just ended up discrediting emissions control.

deleted 9mo ago

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tancop 9mo ago

i just dont see why anti tampering provisions are a thing at all. set rules on factory config and then do random checks and fine anyone actually running their equipment with emissions above the limit. whats happening now is basically you can get fined for using a tune that lets you break the limits in theory even if you never actually do it

smashah 9mo ago

Why limited to farmers? Everyone should have the right to repair, and it shouldn't just apply to hardware. That right should extend to software. Everyone should have the Digital Human Right to Adversarial Interoperability. Thankfully with things like browser automation, we are taking that right from the gatekeepers and rent seekers.

mrbigbob 9mo ago

This will go absolutely nowhere and personally am tired of hearing about some good bills that become nothing. The US will not even let the military have the right to repair. https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/us_military_right_to_repair_stripped/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/us_military_right_to_.... The US is beholden to defense contractors and corporations. The government cares very little if at all about the quality of life of anyone