Colorado’s Right to Repair bill is the first in the nation, not without controversy
Colorado is now the first state to pass a Right to Repair law for agricultural equipment, but not all of the state’s ag groups or even the small group of rural and ag legislators were on the same side of the vote when it was passed and sent to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk.
The bill’s primary sponsor is Jefferson County Rep. Brianna Titone, D-Arvada. She said the amendments with regard to memorandums of understanding (MOUs) and federal agriculture right to repair laws were concessions made though she was hoping to avoid.
“What I’ve read about in countless articles about how farmers are buying tractors from 30-40 years ago so they can fix them, you know really showed that despite advances in technology, the amount of production you can get from a machine these days, you can still lose if you can’t fix your machine and get it up and running,” she said.
Titone has served on the House Agriculture, Water and Natural Resources Committee since joining the legislature in 2018.
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“I understand a lot of the issues we hear from farmers and the organizations and this was a topic that they were really passionate about,” she said. “(The committee members) try to really agree on a lot of things though occasionally we hit an impasse and right to repair was one of those which I personally was a little taken aback by. It was the farmers’ groups, the organizations that are made up of all farmers, were in support of the bill but they ended up going with the people who were not.”
The bill saw numerous amendments throughout the process, including one that repeals the law in the event that a federal law is enacted that establishes a right to repair agricultural equipment, and another that clarifies if an agricultural equipment manufacturer enters into, or is covered under, a nationwide MOU, that agreement will govern an owner’s right to provide services, or to engage the services of an independent repair provider if compliance with the MOU would deny the owner the right to any documentation, including data, tools or embedded software.
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SOME TROUBLING ISSUES
Sen. Cleave Simpson, R-Alamosa, called the bill a solution looking for a problem and was in the majority of legislators from ag-heavy districts who did not support the bill.
“As one of the few members of this body that owns agricultural equipment, that should raise a little bit of a flag with folks to say maybe there is something not quite right in the bill,” Simpson said. “I think I can highlight that by saying the introduced bill is not quite four pages long, but today was the introduction of the 31st amendment to the bill.”
Simpson said he represents thousands of farmers and has spent his entire 61 years around production agriculture. He said during that time, the need for such a bill was never uttered and only four constituents urged him to support the bill. Additionally, government price controls for a manufacturer, which was on earlier versions of the bill, were also troubling.
“I still have and operate the original 4010 tractor my dad bought when I was 10 years old,” he said. “We had a 4010 and now it has a loader on it so it can move bales of hay but it’s pretty limited in what it can do today. I can repair it because the only electric component on it is the battery. Everything else is mechanical.”
Simpson said the body of the bill was adopted from Rep. Titone’s 2022 right to repair wheelchair bill and made to fit the state’s multibillion dollar agriculture equipment industry with dealerships throughout the state. Simpson supported the right to repair wheelchair bill last year, saying the only repair facilities in the state were in Denver and Colorado Springs, leaving rural Colorado without access to repair services. It is, he said, unlike agriculture equipment in that way.
“It’s still a place government doesn’t need to interject itself into solving what arguably is a problem in parts of the state of Colorado,” he said. “It seems to be centered here in the northeast part of the state. I don’t know the disconnect between producers, OEMs and dealerships in that part of the state.”
Titone said she is hopeful the bill will serve as a model for other states, hopefully without the concessions made.
“Everybody hopes the federal government puts a law into effect for all of the states, and that would be the best scenario,” she said. “I don’t have a lot of faith in the federal government getting to something like that or having them build in a lot of concession that really cater to industry and water it down.”
The MOU, she said, would be great if it did what it’s supposed to do, getting people access to all the tools they need to repair their equipment.
“We are hoping this bill can be used by other legislatures to be a model and if they want to go beyond where we couldn’t, where we made those concessions, I would be happy to see that,” she said.
House members casting a no vote include Bird D-Westminster, Bottoms, R-Colorado Springs, Bradley, R-Littleton, Catlin, R-Montrose, DeGraaf, R-Colorado Springs, Evans, R-Fort Lupton, Hartsook, R-Parker, Holtorf, R-Akron, Luck, R- Penrose, Pugliese, R-Colorado Springs, Snyder, D-Manitou Springs, Soper, R-Delta, Wilson, R-Monument, and T. Winter, R-Las Animas. No votes on the senate side were cast by Baisley, R-Roxborough Park, Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, Kirkmeyer, R-Brighton, Liston, R-Colorado Springs, Lundeen, R-Monument, Pelton B., R-Sterling, Pelton R., R-Cheyenne Wells, Rich, R-Grand Junction, Simpson, R-Alamosa, Smallwood, R-Parker, Van Winkle, R-Highlands Ranch, and Will, R-New Castle.
Montana Farmers Union president Walter Schweitzer calls the legislation a breakthrough.
“This allows farmers and ranchers from anywhere in the United States to go to Colorado and buy the tools to repair their equipment,” Schweitzer said. “What that means is I can order the tools and they can ship them to me. The hardware you need is mostly the cables that will connect you to your equipment, software, access to the diagnostics and repair tools that really allow you to program new parts that you purchase to communicate with the on-board computers. And that’s what we’ve been fighting for and now we can buy it in Colorado.”
