Right to Repair and What It Means for Entrepreneurs (House Small Business subcommittee hearing, September 14, 2022)
Summary
The printed record of a hearing before the Subcommittee on Underserved, Agricultural, and Rural Business Development of the House Committee on Small Business, Small Business Committee Document Number 117–065, titled Right to Repair and What It Means for Entrepreneurs, held September 14, 2022 in the 117th Congress. The contents list opening statements by Hon. Jared Golden and Hon. Claudia Tenney. The four witnesses are Gay Gordon-Byrne of the Digital Right to Repair Coalition, Brian Clark of The iGuys' Tech Shop, LLC, Ken Taylor of Ohio Machinery Co. for the Associated Equipment Distributors, and Jim Gerritsen of Wood Prairie Family Farm. Additional material for the record includes statements from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the Association of Equipment Manufactures and iFixit. The subcommittee adjourned at 11:41 a.m.
Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used
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RIGHT TO REPAIR AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR
ENTREPRENEURS
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON UNDERSERVED,
AGRICULTURAL, AND RURAL BUSINESS
DEVELOPMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
UNITED STATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
HEARING HELD
SEPTEMBER 14, 2022
Small Business Committee Document Number 117–065
Available via the GPO Website: www.govinfo.gov
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
48–581 WASHINGTON : 2022
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
NYDIA VELÁZQUEZ, New York, Chairwoman
JARED GOLDEN, Maine
JASON CROW, Colorado
SHARICE DAVIDS, Kansas
KWEISI MFUME, Maryland
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota
MARIE NEWMAN, Illinois
CAROLYN BOURDEAUX, Georgia
TROY CARTER, Louisiana
JUDY CHU, California
DWIGHT EVANS, Pennsylvania
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania
ANDY KIM, New Jersey
ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
SCOTT PETERS, California
BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri, Ranking Member
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas
PETE STAUBER, Minnesota
DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York
ANDREW GARBARINO, New York
YOUNG KIM, California
BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas
BYRON DONALDS, Florida
MARIA SALAZAR, Florida
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
MIKE FLOOD, Nebraska
MELISSA JUNG, Majority Staff Director
ELLEN HARRINGTON, Majority Deputy Staff Director
DAVID PLANNING, Staff Director
(II)
CONTENTS
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Hon. Jared Golden ................................................................................................... 1
Hon. Claudia Tenney ............................................................................................... 2
WITNESSES
Ms. Gay Gordon-Byrne, Executive Director, Digital Right to Repair Coalition,
North River, NY ................................................................................................... 5
Mr. Brian Clark, Co-Owner, The iGuys’ Tech Shop, LLC, Conway, NH ............ 7
Mr. Ken Taylor, President, Ohio Machinery Co., Broadview Heights, OH,
testifying on behalf of the Associated Equipment Distributors (AED) in
his capacity as 2022 Chairman ........................................................................... 9
Mr. Jim Gerritsen, Marketing Manager, Wood Prairie Family Farm, Bridge-
water, ME ............................................................................................................. 11
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Ms. Gay Gordon-Byrne, Executive Director, Digital Right to Repair Coali-
tion, North River, NY ................................................................................... 29
Mr. Brian Clark, Co-Owner, The iGuys’ Tech Shop, LLC, Conway, NH ..... 45
Mr. Ken Taylor, President, Ohio Machinery Co., Broadview Heights, OH,
testifying on behalf of the Associated Equipment Distributors (AED)
in his capacity as 2022 Chairman ............................................................... 50
Mr. Jim Gerritsen, Marketing Manager, Wood Prairie Family Farm,
Bridgewater, ME ........................................................................................... 54
Questions for the Record:
None.
Answers for the Record:
None.
Additional Material for the Record:
Alliance for Automotive Innovation ................................................................ 57
Association of Equipment Manufactures (AEM) ............................................ 59
Automotive Aftermarket Suppliers Association (AASA) ............................... 63
FiXCO Statement ............................................................................................. 67
iFixit Statement ................................................................................................ 68’
Illegal Tampering Coalition Statement .......................................................... 108
Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC), the Specialty Vehicle Institute of
America (SVIA), and the Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Association
(ROHVA) Statement ..................................................................................... 110
National Association of Manufacturers .......................................................... 112
National Farmers Union .................................................................................. 114
North American Equipment Dealers Association (NAEDA) ......................... 118
PIRG Statement ............................................................................................... 119
U.S. PIRG & IAMERS Statement ................................................................... 128
(III)
RIGHT TO REPAIR AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR
ENTREPRENEURS
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2022
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON UNDERSERVED, AGRICULTURAL,
AND RURAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room
2360, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jared Golden [chair-
man of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Golden, Carter, Peters, Williams,
Stauber, Tenney, and Flood.
Chairman GOLDEN. Okay. Good morning. I call this hearing to
order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at
any time.
I would like to begin by noting a few requirements. Standing
House and Committee rules continue to apply during hybrid pro-
ceedings. All Members are reminded that they are expected to ad-
here to these rules including the rules of decorum.
House regulations require Members to be visible through a video
connection throughout the proceeding, so please keep your cameras
on. Also, please remember to remain muted until you are recog-
nized in order to minimize background noise.
In the event that a Member encounters technical issues that pre-
vent them from being recognized for their questioning, I will move
to the next available Member of the same party and I will recog-
nize that Member at the next appropriate time slot provided they
have returned to the proceeding.
With that, I will begin with an opening statement.
Advances in technology have created countless benefits for small
businesses and consumers. Today, entrepreneurs can sell their of-
ferings globally and customers have more access to the products
and services they want than ever.
At the same time, increased technological adoption has created
unintended consequences that can harm entrepreneurs, particu-
larly in rural communities like those that we represent.
Since the 1990s, consumer electronics, automobiles, and a variety
of other products have become more complicated to fix and main-
tain. Large manufacturers and corporations have increasingly
moved to limit the ability of consumers and independent, small
businesses to make repairs on a range of essential products. These
(1)
2
repair restrictions can impact small firms across various industries,
often increasing costs and sometimes upending business models.
In a 2021 report to Congress, the Federal Trade Commission out-
lined numerous ways that manufacturers inhibit the ability to
make repairs on everyday products like mobile phones, auto-
mobiles, agricultural machinery, and medical equipment.
These methods range from making products physically harder to
open, to requiring access to proprietary diagnostic software to ini-
tiate even minor repairs. These practices frustrate consumers by
forcing them to go to manufacturers for repair or to replace their
products entirely. Repair restrictions also negatively impact small
firms by raising costs and limiting repair options for small busi-
nesses that depend on machinery.
Take, for example, small independent farmers. For generations,
small farmers have been able to make their own repairs on the
spot and continue working when a tractor or other piece of impor-
tant equipment breaks down. Yet, today, a modern tractor can
come equipped with hundreds of censors. A malfunction in just one
can cause an entire machine to stop working and force a farmer to
stop their harvest to haul equipment to a dealership that is hours
away or wait for a field technician. I have heard firsthand from
Maine farmers that these delays can cost small farms days in wast-
ed productivity and thousands of dollars in revenue.
But these restrictions do not just impact entrepreneurs that use
machinery; they also make it difficult for the many independent
businesses that work to repair these products.
Independent repair shops frequently offer lower prices than larg-
er manufacturers. For instance, in the medical equipment sector,
independent servicers often work on equipment for about $150 to
$250 an hour, while large manufacturers charge up to $500 to $600
per hour with a 4-hour minimum.
Decades of evidence have made it clear that repair restrictions
do cause costs to go up. They hurt small businesses, and they en-
courage waste while increasing the profits of corporations.
Given these adverse effects, the proliferation of restrictions
should be addressed. That is why we should explore common-sense
and bipartisan Right to Repair laws that protect consumers and
small businesses. Several of my colleagues have already introduced
proposals to restrict the ability of large companies to monopolize
repair and aftermarket products.
Today, we will take a closer look at actions that Congress can
take to ensure the right to repair for small businesses, independent
shops, and for individual consumers.
I would now like to yield to the Ranking Member, Ms. Tenney,
for her opening statement.
Ms. TENNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to the
witnesses. Thank you for your remarks as well.
I am also a small business owner and my cousins and my broth-
ers’ in-laws are also farmers. So I am also a lawyer, so I have a
unique perspective I think on this issue which I think is a very im-
portant one. And thank you.
The right to repair is alluring in its simplicity. In theory, it
seems obvious that if you buy something, you own it, and you
should have the freedom to do what you want with it. America is,
3
after all, a nation of thinkers and innovators. That freedom to inno-
vate is part of what makes our country great.
From a more practical standpoint—I always have to have the
legal side of it—the right to repair has its benefits. No more wast-
ing valuable time and resources waiting for only the authorized
professionals to repair a product at a fixed price. The right to re-
pair, if properly designed, can create a world of consumer choice,
competitor pricing, and potential cost savings.
However, when this issue is examined in full depth, it becomes
substantially less black and white. There is, in fact, a significant
amount of gray when it comes to the right to repair. Years ago, ma-
chines were simpler. They consisted of nuts, bolts, and other me-
chanical parts. Today, many machines are essentially sophisticated
super computers. They perform seemingly miraculous feed thanks
to delicate and complex electronic components integrated with
highly specialized proprietary software.
Even with all the possible tools and resources at one’s disposal,
attempting to self-fix or modify products with electronic compo-
nents could lead to disastrous results, such as product failure, or
even worse, serious injury to the consumer. In addition, these alter-
ations can put the privacy and security of the user at risk requiring
product manuals and their software to be 100 percent open source
risk bad actors tampering with hacking and damaging the product,
as well as stealing consumers’ private data. We cannot open our
producers to this type of liability.
Looking at the bigger picture, I harbor serious concerns over the
potential theft of American manufacturers’ intellectual property if
forced to divulge such information under Right to Repair laws. We
could be inviting foreign and potentially hostile entities to steal
American innovation right out from under us. American manufac-
turers could be stuck with a bill for the upfront research, develop-
ment, and production costs. Then they would have to turn around
and compete against foreign companies making similar products
based off of stolen American intellectual property. This is famously
true with China each year as they steal our intellectual property.
This would handicap American manufacturers on the world stage
sending negative ripple effects throughout our economy while at
the same time providing a windfall to our global competitors.
The last thing I will mention here is that we should be mindful
of the downstream impacts of the right to repair and consumers
and small businesses, not just manufacturers. The right to repair
might create new markets where small and independent repair
shops could flourish. We have seen this successfully happen within
the auto industry.
However, the right to repair may also harm small businesses,
like small dealerships and authorized repair shops. Also, small
businesses and sometimes corporations that provide products, re-
placement parts, and professional repair services to the customers.
In short, the right to repair makes perfect logical sense when de-
signed in a thoughtful manner that considers the realities of the
industry. A cautious, measured, and well-informed approach is re-
quired when considering these next steps.
4
It is my hope today that we can engage our esteemed witnesses
in such a great discussion. Thanks again to our witnesses for their
contributions.
I just want to, for the record, introduce two letters that we re-
ceived if I may, Chairman. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation.
This record, if this letter could be introduced.
Also a letter addressed to both the Chairman and Ranking Mem-
ber form the National Association of Manufacturers.
So I just want to say thank you to the witnesses. I really look
forward to a great discussion with the Chairman and with our
Members. Thanks again, and I yield back.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you, Ms. Tenney. All good points. I
look forward to talking more about the issue.
I will quickly take a moment to explain how the hearing will pro-
ceed.
Each witnesses is going to have 5 minutes to provide an opening
statement and each Committee Member will have 5 minutes for
questions following that.
Please ensure that your microphone is on when you begin speak-
ing and that you return to mute when finished.
With that, I will introduce our witnesses.
Our first witness is Ms. Gay Gordon-Byrne, the founding Mem-
ber of the Digital Right to Repair Coalition. And she serves as its
executive director. Ms. Gordon-Byrne has had a full career starting
in the 1970s in the technology sector, trained first as a systems
software engineer and then expanding into sales and marketing for
many corporations. Her broad experience gave her specific into
manufacturers’ design and maintenance, resulting in her 2014
book, Buying, Supporting, and Maintaining Software and Equip-
ment: An IT Manager’s Guide to Controlling the Product’s
Lifecycle. She is a frequent guest and panelist at conferences such
as the National Association of States Attorneys General. A month
ago, her TED Talk in the summer of 2021 or her research and tes-
timony the FTC Workshop, nixing the fix, which resulted in the
2021 report to Congress by the same name. Thank you for joining
us today, and we look forward to hearing your testimony.
Second, we will hear from Mr. Brian Clark, the co-owner and
CTO of iGuys Tech Shop in North Conway, New Hampshire. Mr.
Clark started his business out of necessity in 2012 being the only
independent phone repair shop in town. He manages day-to-day op-
erations and takes a lead on repairs and support work. He has tes-
tified on behalf of state right to repair bills twice in New Hamp-
shire and approaches this issue from the perspective of a small
business owner in a rural area. Thank you, Mr. Clark.
Third is Mr. Jim Gerritsen, who along with his wife Megan and
son Caleb, have run the Wood Prairie Family Farm in Northern
Maine. That is in my congressional district. They have been run-
ning that for over 45 years now. The Gerritsens specialize in grow-
ing organic, early generation, Maine certified seed potatoes, seed
crops, and grain. In addition to farming, Jim has been active in the
organic community for over 4 decades. He helped found the Or-
ganic Seed Growers and Trade Association. He has served on its
board of directors since its inception and has been its long-time
president. On Earth Day in 2014, Jim spoke to the United Nations
5
General Assembly about the advantages of organic farming. Thank
you, Mr. Gerritsen for being here today. I look forward to your tes-
timony.
And I will yield to the Ranking Member to introduce our final
witness.
Ms. TENNEY. Thank you. It is my pleasure to introduce Mr. Ken
Taylor, Chairman of the Associated Equipment Distributors for
AED, whom he is representing today. AED is an international
trade association representing companies involved in the distribu-
tion, rental, and support of equipment used in construction, min-
ing, forestry, power generation, agriculture, and industrial applica-
tions. Its membership consists of independent distributors, includ-
ing small businesses that sell, rental, and provide after-market
equipment support, manufacturers, and suppliers of business serv-
ices. In addition to his leadership at AED, Mr. Taylor is the presi-
dent and Chairman of the board of Ohio Machinery Company, an
authorized dealer for construction, vehicle, and agricultural equip-
ment. He is a third generation owner having assumed the role of
president after his father and he is joined in the company by his
daughter Jillian. Mr. Taylor is an active contributor to the industry
and his community having served and currently serving in leader-
ship roles in various organizations such as the Foundation for Ap-
palachian Ohio; Ohio Equipment Distributors Association; Coopera-
tion Association of Tractor Dealers, Inc.; Ohio Contractors Associa-
tion; the Fisher Institute for Professional Selling at the University
of Akron; and I Build America-Ohio. Mr. Taylor, I just want to say
thank you for your valuable contributions to the community, for
joining us today, and for your extensive involvement in organiza-
tions throughout the State of Ohio where I went to law school. I
look forward to hearing your testimony and I yield back, Mr. Chair-
man.
Chairman GOLDEN. All right. Thank you all for joining us
today.
We will begin with Ms. Gordon-Byrne. You are recognized for 5
minutes.
STATEMENTS OF GAY GORDON-BYRNE, EXECUTIVE DIREC-
TOR, DIGITAL RIGHT TO REPAIR COALITION; BRIAN CLARK,
CO-OWNER, THE IGUYS’ TECH SHOP, LLC; KEN TAYLOR,
PRESIDENT, OHIO MACHINERY CO.; JIM GERRITSEN, MAR-
KETING MANAGER, WOOD PRAIRIE FAMILY FARM
STATEMENT OF GAY GORDON-BYRNE
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman
and ranker.
As you have already explained, right to repair is very near and
dear to my heart, and it is particularly near and dear to me be-
cause I do live in an underserved rural area of Upstate New York.
And having been a technology person for most of my career, I hope
that I can speak well to this. If we cannot fix our stuff, and I mean
it in a very general sense because anything that has a chip in it
right now I call ‘‘stuff’’ so I do not have to mention any manufactur-
ers. But if we cannot fix our stuff, we are in the position of we have
got to throw it away, buy new, or do without.
6
Throwing away is why we have an e-waste problem. Most of our
states and municipalities are not beginning to collect the full extent
of what is now e-waste. And that winds up being a taxpayer ex-
pense.
If we are buying new, that is also a very limiting factor for peo-
ple, particularly people that are already on public assistance of
some kind which last I saw is about 50 percent of the population.
So it is a big problem for people that are not wealthy.
And then going without is why we have a digital divide. So I
think it is a very serious problem. It is not a trivial problem. It af-
fects everything that we buy. And when I was preparing for testi-
mony at the Federal Trade Commission, I looked at manufacturer
policies and pretty much concluded, as did U.S. PIRG that about
90 percent of the products on the market today are already repair
monopolized, meaning that the only option for repair, if there is
one, is through the manufacturer.
So this eliminates all competition. These are now starting to be
recognized in the courts as actual monopolies and there is some
discussion among the state attorneys general, et cetera, of how
they might approach these monopolies and try to untangle them.
Obviously, rural people, such as myself and a number of the
Members here, are already underserved just because everything is
far away. We do not have much access to medical care. Education
is distant. High speed internet is still a problem. And even getting
groceries. I mean, I am 15 miles from a grocery store. I have to
plan ahead. If something breaks in my house, I really do have to
fix it because the nearest technician could be 45 or 100 miles away.
So I live in a community where repair is kind of in our DNA and
we need to be able to do it. And that is not just consumers. That
is also all the businesses in town. They face the same problems and
they need the same options to be able to fix their stuff.
Now, urban areas, which I know has been a question, how is it
that urban areas are underserved? Well, they are really under-
served if they do not have money, which is not the same as dis-
tance, although they may also have, let’s say public transit might
not go to the mall where there is a local store. So it is even harder
for people in underserved urban communities to get access to what
I would call price competitive repair. And most of those people sim-
ply do without. So in order to turn this ship around, we really do
have to make repairs more widely accessible. It is not even so
much money as it is availability. Farmers, in particular, always tell
us that they do not mind paying. They just have to have their stuff
fixed.
So the key to keeping all this working is to have the option of
competition for repair, which we have discovered works pretty well
using the legislative template that the auto industry began with.
They passed their first bill in Massachusetts in 2012. It rapidly led
to an agreement that is now a national agreement. It is not perfect
but it is working. And we copied it. I literally sat down and wrote
the first bill by taking out the word ‘‘automobile’’ and stuffing in
the word ‘‘digital electronic product.’’ And the philosophy is the
same. A state can say, Mr. Manufacturer, if you are going to do
business in my state, you must provide fair and reasonable access
to the same parts, tools, diagnostics, and service information that
7
you are currently only providing on an exclusive basis to your deal-
ership.
Now, this means that the manufacturer—and I have been a man-
ufacturer so I feel I can speak with some confidence—manufactur-
ers never put secrets in their repair documentation because they
would never be secret. They do not put crypto keys in their repair
documentation because that would also get around the internet al-
most instantly. So what the dealerships and the authorized pro-
viders get is actually a very limited set of tools. The diagnostic
tools may be ‘‘proprietary’’ but they are not mystical. They are re-
porting on whether or not a connection from part A to part B is
functional. These things can be done without using the manufac-
turer. This is incredibly tedious. So as a practical business oppor-
tunity, people that cannot buy the manufacturer diagnostics cannot
really be in business, which is a huge problem for people like
Brian.
So the unlocking is basically the Massachusetts law turned into
electronics and it has worked well. We have got 10 years of experi-
ence with that law. The sky did not fall. People are not driving
around on terrible brake systems because the local mechanic fixed
them instead of the dealership. They are not losing access to their
bank accounts because of some crypto mythology. So I think we are
pretty confident that that model works.
Now, we have actually got that bill going in 43 different states.
And New York passed the first bill this year for consumer elec-
tronic—it is not strictly consumer electronics but——
Chairman GOLDEN. If we could just get close to——
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE.—general electronics.
Colorado passed a really quite different bill enabling repair of
powered wheelchairs.
So we are on a roll. We know that Congress has some work to
do. It would be very, very helpful if we could get some of the copy-
right restrictions that do apply to repair, if we could get those lift-
ed. But other than that, I think we have got a good template and
I think we can satisfy Ms. Tenney’s concerns as well. Thank you.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you very much.
We will now recognize Mr. Clark.
STATEMENT OF BRIAN CLARK
Mr. CLARK. Good morning, Mr. Golden, Mr. Tenney. Thanks for
hearing my testimony today.
As mentioned, my name is Brian Clark. I am the co-owner of a
small, independent repair, consumer electronics repair shop located
in the town of Conway, New Hampshire. We specialize in repair of
all smartphones and tablets, as well as Apple branded computers.
We also provide data recovery and micro soldering services. We
founded the business in 2012. We recognized the Conway area des-
perately needed local options for repair of devices that were becom-
ing increasingly important to everyday life.
Conway lies in a very rural part of the state in the heart of the
White Mountains, a very popular tourist destination. The perma-
nent population of the area that we serve is somewhere around
100,000 people based on 2020 census data. This is covering a very
8
large area at over 1,000 square miles. We serve around 1,200 to
1,500 paying customers every year on average.
As an independent shop, we have no affiliation with any manu-
facturer. Even as the industry has evolved over the last decade, we
still find that it is best for our business and more importantly for
our customers to remain independent. Any paths to becoming an
authorized repair facility are far from ideal and are generally in-
credibly invasive to our business and restrictive in what we can do
for our customers.
Of course, there are drawbacks to our choice, as most manufac-
turers continue to offer independent shops little to no official access
to genuine parts, repair manuals, tools, or schematics. Manufactur-
ers want control over how and whether your device gets repaired
by forcing customers to authorized repair. For Apple devices, the
nearest authorized repair facility, in this case an Apple Authorized
Service Provider or AASP, is about 45 minutes from my shop. The
nearest Apple Store is about 1 hour, 15 minutes away. For
Samsung and Google devices, the closest facility is about 1 hour,
30 minutes away. If you have a device from another manufacturer
such as Motorola or LG, mail-in repair is your only option.
Because New Hampshire becomes increasingly rural as you go
north, all of these authorized repair options are located in the more
densely populated southern parts of the state. This means that
most of our customers would need to drive an additional 45 to 90
minutes, after already frequently driving over an hour or more just
to reach us. This situation is far from unique to northern New
Hampshire. I do want to be clear on that. There are countless loca-
tions around the country where similar, or worse, situations can be
encountered.
Over the decade that we have been in business, we have seen
countless scenarios repeat and replay themselves over and over
again for our customers.
In my written testimony, I play out four examples of real world
scenarios that are incredibly common for a rural repair shop like
mine. With the limited time I have here today, I would like to high-
light the common threads that come into play in these scenarios
that we see so frequently.
First of all, the devices that we service have become tools. Tools
that are integral to people’s day-to-day lives at home, at work, and
in businesses. Access to timely repair for folks that find themselves
without these tools is crucial, and in rural areas that would be
nearly impossible without independent repair. Time and time again
we are able to get folks back up and running with far less interrup-
tion to their lives than if they were forced to use solely authorized
repair options.
Misleading information. When contacting authorized repair, con-
sumers are not always given completely truthful information. More
specifically, they are told that certain things cannot be repaired
when they really mean that the manufacturer does not offer an au-
thorized repair option for the customer’s problem. This practice is
very unfriendly to the consumer and as part of an effort to replace
replacement of devices, something that is not always easy to do in
rural areas.
9
Keeping technology in use is important. Not everyone cares to
have the latest and greatest tech. Not everyone can afford the lat-
est and greatest tech as Ms. Gordon-Byrne alluded to. We found
this especially true in rural areas like ours. Independent repair
gives folks in these situations the option to keep their device going
even if the manufacturer no longer wishes to provide official repair.
The last thing is data. The information we keep on these devices
is often priceless. A business owner frequently has contacts and
communication on their device that would be irreplaceable if lost.
Almost all of us keep photographs and other personal data on our
devices that would be devasting to lose. Authorized repair generally
provides no options for a situation where data recovery is needed.
Their point of view is that if you did not back it up, it is your fault.
In summary, the presence of reliable independent consumer elec-
tronics repair in rural areas is crucial for the quality of life of resi-
dents, as well as the economy of these areas. Despite this clear im-
portance, manufacturers continue to ignore the need and frankly
make it unnecessary challenging for businesses like mine to oper-
ate. Independent repair is ready, willing, and able to fill the void
the major manufacturers have left particularly in these rural mar-
kets. All we ask is that manufacturers give us reasonable paid ac-
cess to parts, tools, and documentation to continue to offer these
services for years to come. Thank you for your time.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you.
And I believe that our third witness up in Maine has technical
difficulties so we are going to go ahead and recognize you, sir.
STATEMENT OF KEN TAYLOR
Mr. TAYLOR. Chairman Golden, Ranking Member Tenney, and
other distinguished Members of this Subcommittee, it is an honor
to appear before you today both as Associated Equipment Distribu-
tors’ (AED) 2022 Chairman and as president of Ohio Machinery Co.
AED is the international trade association representing inde-
pendent companies that sell, rent and service equipment used in
many applications, including construction, agriculture, forestry, en-
ergy, mining, material handling and industrial production.
Ohio Machinery Co. was founded in 1945, and I am the third
generation from my family to run the business, following both my
father and my grandfather.
Right to repair is a simple slogan; however, the policy proposals
surrounding the issue are complex with significant consequences.
At the outset, I want to make it clear; AED Members support cus-
tomers’ right to repair their machinery, and distributors make
available diagnostic tools, repair information, parts, and remote
customer support.
Idle, non-functioning equipment equals lost time and money.
Whether it is on a farm during harvest or on a road building
project, there is absolutely zero incentive to not do everything we
can as equipment dealers and manufacturers to keep a machine
running. That can mean repairs completed by a dealership service
technician, the customer, or a third-party provider.
The equipment industry is highly competitive, and if Ohio Ma-
chinery Co. is not providing proper and timely service, nothing is
10
stopping the customer from moving to one of my many competitors
and their products.
However, we do not support unfettered access to critical on-board
software and information pertaining to environmental and safety
protections or key operational functions which is what proposals in
various states and Congress would do.
The tractors we are selling today are not the same as those sold
by my grandfather or even my father. While customers can com-
plete most repairs to their machinery, government, environmental,
and safety regulations, as well as technological developments that
have made equipment more efficient and productive necessitate re-
strictions and access to source code and software that ensure key
operational functions are not modified or disabled.
Right to repair legislation currently being considered in Congress
will completely alter the equipment industry’s distribution model.
Manufacturers of equipment rely on a network of independent,
mostly family-owned, small-to-medium-sized companies to sell, rent
and service the equipment. These dealers make significant invest-
ments in their employees, including training service technicians to
repair and maintain the latest high-technology machinery. Many
AED Member facilities are located in rural and underserved areas,
creating well-paying careers and economic opportunity.
Equipment dealers also invest extensive capital in parts inven-
tories to ensure repairs and maintenance can occur as soon as pos-
sible. Out-of-service equipment is not merely an inconvenience; it
can ruin a farmer’s harvest or delay completion of a bridge or road-
way.
However, right to repair proposals require original equipment
manufacturers to sell parts and diagnostic tools directly to the pub-
lic at cost, without profit, completely circumventing the equipment
dealer. Aside from effectively dismantling the equipment distribu-
tion industry’s aftermarket parts business and thereby putting
many equipment dealers out of business, logistically, it is imprac-
tical and would only exacerbate inflationary pressures in the equip-
ment market and create long delays in parts availability.
For many equipment dealers, parts revenue produces the major-
ity of income for the business, though parts margins are far from
inordinate. If parts are required to be provided at cost, many deal-
ers would be put out of business. Anyone can walk into an AED
Member facility, or go online, and buy OEM parts for their equip-
ment. There is no restriction on who can purchase parts, whether
it is an equipment owner, a third-party service provider, an equip-
ment operator, or a Member of the general public. However, there
will be no incentive for an equipment dealer to carry parts inven-
tory if the manufacturer or the dealer is forced to sell without the
ability to make a profit.
For the equipment industry, right to repair proposals are a solu-
tion in search of a problem. AED Members provide customers and
third-party repair providers with parts, tools, and other resources
to complete the overwhelming majority of equipment repairs. En-
acting these proposals will stifle entrepreneurship and the result
will be an unprecedented intrusion by government into the free en-
terprise system.
11
I reflect on my grandfather and the reasons he got into the
equipment distribution industry. He was looking for a better life for
his family, the opportunity to create well-paying jobs and careers
for his employees, and the privilege of giving back to the commu-
nity, including in underserved areas like Appalachia. Most equip-
ment dealers have similar stories because the United States allows
entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams. Unfortunately, I worry that
should these right to repair policies become law, the viability of the
equipment distribution industry will be severely hampered, result-
ing in lost economic activity, job creation, technological advance-
ments, and a less competitive America.
Chairman Golden, Ranking Member Tenney, and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the honor of appearing before you
today. I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
Thank you.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you, sir.
Subject to the call of the Chair, we are going to take a brief re-
cess to try and sort out some technological difficulties.
[Recess]
Chairman GOLDEN. We will bring this hearing back into order.
And we will now recognize Mr. Gerritsen for 5 minutes for your
opening statement. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF JIM GERRITSEN
Mr. GERRITSEN. Okay. Thank you for your patience. Sorry, but
we had trouble with our rural internet.
Good morning, Congressman Golden and Congresswoman
Tenney, and Members of the Subcommittee.
I am Jim Gerritsen from the State of Maine. I am a family farm-
er. I work closely with our son, who is the chief mechanic on the
farm. We both strongly support the concept of preserving the right
of farmers and independent shops to repair the equipment that
farmers own. We urge Congress to codify traditional farmer and
independent shop repair rights by passing legislation that serves
the public good by leveling the economic playing field, restraining
monopoly control, and thereby uplifting the economy and enhanc-
ing the freedom and liberty of working Americans.
For almost 50 years, along with my family, I have been growing
organic crops on our farm. We are located in Aroostook County, the
northernmost county in the State of Maine, referred to as the ‘‘Po-
tato Empire.’’ To this day, Aroostook County grows more acres of
potatoes than any other county in the United States except one.
On our farm we raise organic Maine certified seed potatoes and
other types of organic seed. Our crops have all been certified or-
ganic for 40 years, including the last 20 years under regulation by
USDA National Organic Program.
For over 40 years we have retailed our crops directly to our retail
customers and beginning 33 years ago we opened an organic seed
business with a mail order catalog, later adding a web store.
My wife and I have now handed our farm down to our son, Caleb
Gerritsen. He is a skilled mechanic. After high school, he increased
his knowledge and ability by earning a degree in diesel hydraulic
mechanics at the local community college. Caleb does an excellent
job maintaining our tractors and equipment. In Aroostook County,
12
it is extremely common for farmers to do most of their own equip-
ment repair work.
By design, in order to increase our own financial farm viability,
we long ago consciously made the strategic decision to only own
equipment that we ourselves are able to repair. Therefore, we have
avoided purchasing modern, electronically sophisticated farm trac-
tors and equipment which contain computer chips. For example, on
our family farm we rely upon older equipment going back to the
1970s, equipment that we have repaired and rebuilt ourselves.
We would never choose to place ourselves into a vulnerable posi-
tion of being at the mercy of malfunctioning electronic sensors,
then being involuntarily forced into ‘‘limp mode,’’ and becoming
locked out of our own equipment, having to wait until a mechanic
from the dealership came out on their time schedule to get us going
again.
When a problem as common and as minor as water condensation
in a diesel tank can cause a sudden ‘‘limp mode’’ activation, say
during peak planting or peak harvest, not only does that place an
individual farmer and our livelihood at risk, but it really places the
nation’s food security at risk.
Within the entire economy, there is growing concentration, grow-
ing monopoly control, and I think that this hurts all Americans.
And within agriculture, I think the situation is extreme. Right here
in Aroostook County, the local John Deere dealership last year,
which had been owned for 63 years by a local family, they sold out
to a company that has 63 John Deere dealerships. And that type
of concentration I do not think is correct in a free market economy.
And I think that when you have concentrated monopoly power that
it works against the interests of citizens. And I think only under
that kind of condition would you have the boldness for a tractor
company to engage in putting this kind of proprietary limitation on
farmers who with good intention bought the equipment and then
are prevented from working on it themselves or having a local me-
chanic that they know and trust work on it.
In closing, let me encourage your Subcommittee to work together
and create legislative remedies that will provide America’s ailing
family farms with greater resiliency, increase fair market competi-
tion, and provide Americans with a more stable food supply. Con-
gress should enjoin the U.S. Department of Justice to vigorously
enforce existing laws which restrain monopolies, including the
Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. We are living in a new era. There-
fore, appropriate modernized legislation will be necessary to adjust
to the times and force farm equipment manufacturers and software
companies to play fair, prevent abuse and manipulation of markets,
and be effectively restrained from the negative consequences of mo-
nopolistic behaviors. Thank you for this opportunity.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you. And thanks for overcoming the
technological challenges there.
We will go ahead and move to Q and A at this point beginning
by recognizing myself for 5 minutes. I will start with you, Ms. Gor-
don-Byrne.
You talked about a Massachusetts law, a Right to Repair law,
which has been in existence it sounds like for about 10 years. Can
13
you tell us a little bit about how the law has worked to benefit
independent repair shops that have been most hurt by restrictions?
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. Certainly. The law required auto manu-
facturers doing business in the State of Massachusetts to provide
access to the same diagnostic tools, software, software updates, and
regular tools as were being made available only to the dealerships.
And they did not have a parts requirement because the auto parts
industry is pretty open. The only thing we really changed in the
template bill was to add a parts requirement. But it worked very
well. It has enabled independent mechanics to stay in business.
And they very much expected to go out of business. We had some
information from Snap-On Tools, pretty famous, that they were
really, really financially stressed until the law was passed and then
they were able to grow again, the only reason that I know that my
local mechanic can even work on my car.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you. I appreciate that.
On the issue of software updates and diagnostic tools, with my
Armed Services Committee hat on, it reminds me a little bit of
some of the problem we have with the readiness of our naval fleet
ships coming into port and sitting there for much longer than nec-
essary is they wait for software updates because of the contracts
and various other reasons the Navy is not even in possession of.
It has become quite a problem.
Mr. Clark, there are, as you pointed out with Apple, several dif-
ferent levels of affiliation that can increase access to parts for inde-
pendent repair shops. Can you explain these affiliations and why
is it that you have remained independent? What is the benefit to
you or to your customers?
Mr. CLARK. So I mentioned the Apple authorized service pro-
vider status in my testimony and that is the highest level that an
independent shop like mine could gain. But the higher level you
get, the more access you get to parts and information, but the more
restrictive it is and the more Apple controls what you do. It is very,
very difficult to become an AASP. It is very invasive to your busi-
ness.
Now, I should also mention that it is also difficult to gain a true
understanding of what you have to do because Apple makes every-
body sign so many NDAs it is hard to get truthful information as
to the process. But it has leaked out to a certain extent.
There is also Apple’s relatively new IRP program, Independent
Repair Provider program. Again, less access to parts and tools and
software but a little less invasive, but still frightfully invasive to
a person’s business. You are open to audits at any time, both finan-
cial, and, also, they can just walk into your store and check on
what you have in stock at any time that they want. And again, all
of that, the knowledge we have on that is limited by those NDAs.
People just cannot talk about it.
Apple did just introduce their self-service repair option but for
that you have to put in the serial number of a device to even be
able to order parts. So as an independent shop, I cannot even use
that program to order parts to keep in stock. I have to put a cus-
tomer’s device in. I can order the part and then wait 5 to 7 days
to receive it. It really just does not work for us. And our customers.
Thank you.
14
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you.
Mr. Taylor, some of the concerns you raised were concerns about
environmental regulations as well as kind of safety. People given
the option to bypass some of these things would go ahead and do
so. Is it a concern about personal liability for your business or is
it just a strong kind of like feeling that the environmental regula-
tions are important? I mean, my take is that generally farmers,
just as an example, will find a way around these things given the
opportunity. Is it not really up to them once they own the equip-
ment? What is the concern for you as a business owner as it relates
to safety or environmental regulations?
Mr. TAYLOR. Some personal experience. Both trade-in situa-
tions. So had a farm tractor. Traded it in and it was ‘‘chipped.’’ And
the chipping allows it to put more horsepower to the ground and
really a farmer needs to get work done in a short amount of time.
So when we took that machine in on trade, as a dealer, we cannot
let it leave our facility chipped. We have to put extra cost into the
unit for it to be a valid product to sell.
Same with a truck. We had a CAT truck at the time where all
of the gear was taken off of the engine. And again, if it enters our
premises, then we are going to have to add all that equipment. And
I think that with that truck the gear was probably $10,000 or
$12,000 of material that someone had to pay for for that truck to
be a viable trade in and then to be sold again. So, I think it is the
regulations. It is the laws that are applicable here both with envi-
ronmental and safety but it is also the practical cost issues associ-
ated with people messing with the technology makes our life dif-
ficult as a dealer.
Chairman GOLDEN. That is an interesting point. Thank you.
That is the 5 minutes that I have so we will now recognize the
Ranking Member.
Ms. TENNEY. Thank you. The witnesses, that was great testi-
mony. I am just going to bring a couple of angles.
Whenever government gets in the middle of it, it tends to over-
play. I know all the witnesses talked about competition, and I
heard an all or nothing approach.
I am from New York State, and even as a lawyer, most of the
bills that I looked at of any significance coming through our Codes
Committee, which was our Committee of jurisdiction, there was an
angle for the trial lawyers to find liability on someone, particularly
small business owners without taking that into regard. So that is
my concern, the liability issue.
I am concerned about intellectual property. Ma’am, you men-
tioned competition. You also mentioned competition. We mentioned
competition. It seems to me that there could be a reasonable mid-
dle ground here on some of these issues because I will give you a
perfect example. When I was young in our printing business, I
learned how to operate a press in the 1970s, beginning of the
1980s, and it was hard work. I mean, there were no computers and
no chips. You had to know how to gauge the water, the ink, and
how to deal with the press. Now we actually operate a press that
are very expensive and you can operate them in a suit and never
get any ink on you and be very clean. And the technology is very
different. And, also, as the lawyer, former lawyer for our company,
15
I have gone in and seen these very expensive presses with duct
tape on them. And that is because a lot of our employees are
former farmers, especially dairy farmers. They are like MacGyver.
They can fix anything and they can make anything run, even if it
has a chip in it. So, but I do think there is a middle ground.
But I wanted to ask you, and just to respond maybe to some of
the comments made by, you know, I love the vintage farmer and
the idea of that. We still have people in our communities, very
rural upstate New York, who use vintage equipment. We also have
a lot of Amish farmers who are still using horses.
So could you just explain to me a little bit on maybe replying to
that and how we could find a way to make sure we protect our sup-
ply chains the way they are now to make sure the small business
owners and dealers are protected, but also, how do we kind of bring
this all together? A little elaborate on what you just said to Mr.
Golden possibly.
Mr. TAYLOR. I have to say at the outset I think that our indus-
try has many differences with consumer electronics in other indus-
tries. We have, for instance, as a CAT dealer, we have a tool called
Electronic Technician. And you can buy the customer version of
Electronic Technician. And that facilitates more repairs than if you
did not have the tool. Right on CAT’s website today there are in-
structions for the ‘‘do it myself’’ owner of equipment or engines. We
will engage with that customer and find a solution, whether that
is in-person, on the phone, over a chat, whatever it might be. We
will engage with that equipment owner to come up with a solution.
There is going to be inevitably, perhaps, some cost that is ex-
traordinary because of the remoteness, perhaps, of that company,
but I think we are always looking at the end result, which is
uptime. And so our whole business functions on uptime. So we are
going to figure that out. It just may not be as efficient a solution
as would be in an urban area perhaps.
Ms. TENNEY. So quick question, potentially a solution to you,
and I am going to ask this of Mr. Clark. Is there a way that we
can negotiate and keep competition in play that manufacturers can
actually work with and make it easier to create authorized repair
facilities and get more people involved in that process so that peo-
ple in rural areas can have greater access to people that are highly
trained? I am going to ask you that quickly because I want to ask
Mr. Clark about that because he includes in his testimony that it
is incredibly invasive and tough to be an authorized repair facility.
And I just want to get your quick answer and see what his re-
sponse is.
Mr. TAYLOR. Well, my quick answer would be that setting up
a dealership in an area is probably at minimum a $500 million in-
vestment in our type of business. So you are going to see us look
for economies of scale and cover any——
Ms. TENNEY. But quickly, can you not contract with someone
like Mr. Clark and train him so that he could be someone in that
rural area? Is that something that could be done?
Mr. TAYLOR. Well, really, there would need to be an approval
from a manufacturer. So we are the distributor in the middle and
the manufacturer would have to allow that.
16
Ms. TENNEY. Okay. So, but I am saying there could be a con-
tract.
So Mr. Clark, is that something that you would consider a poten-
tial solution? I am running out of time.
Mr. CLARK. If it were that easy, sure. I will answer your ques-
tion with a little bit of a question. Why does Apple need to see my
financials to order parts from them? Why do they need to visit my
shop to see what accessories I am selling to buy parts from them?
That is what is problematic for a business like mine. It just does
not make any sense why they need to have so much control over
my business just to get parts. Just to get tools.
Ms. TENNEY. I think they are basic financial statements; would
they not be? I am just guessing.
Mr. CLARK. Again, it is hard to know because it is all hidden
behind nondisclosure agreements.
Ms. TENNEY. My time has expired but I would love if we can
revisit. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Mr. TAYLOR. Could I just simply add as a dealer, we have very
high standards of what they want to see the customer experience.
And so those standards will not be sacrificed. And therefore, when
we move outside the authorized dealer network, there is no ability
to control standards and the companies meeting those standards.
So it is just not even a discussion point.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you.
Next, we will recognize Representative Carter.
Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all of you.
Listen, we hear much from manufacturers who suggest that their
restrictions are imposed because of intellectual property rights.
Can you share your view on how much that bleeds over into and
how it impacts you?
Chairman GOLDEN. Who are you addressing?
Mr. CARTER. Anyone. Anyone who would like to answer it.
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. I will give a swing at that.
Intellectual property is not involved in repair. Many people as-
sume that it is but it is not. Our copyright law, the DMCA of 1998,
has specific provisions in it to allow people to back up and restore
all of their licensed software at no copyright peril.
Patents are already public. So if Chinese people are ripping off
patents, nothing about right to repair is going to add to that capa-
bility. That has already been done. That horse is out of the barn,
so to speak. And there is really no actual period. The copyright law
and I believe it was Senators Leahy and Grassley requested a
study of the copyright office back in 2016 and 2017 about the spe-
cific rights under copyright law and under the 1201 exemption
process. And they found that there is nothing wrong with copyright
law.
Mr. CARTER. Excuse me. We continue to hear that manufactur-
ers are still leaning on this as a barrier. Are you saying that that
is not correct? Are they just doing it erroneously?
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. They are pretty disingenuous.
Mr. TAYLOR. I would say today in the equipment business, the
innovation that is occurring is extraordinary. Hard parts at one
time were a part of a product’s competitive advantage, and today
as much as hard parts as the software and the code that provides
17
more power, more efficiency, longevity, all the features that one
wants in a piece of equipment, a tool on a job, software supports
much of that today which is just an entirely different picture. It is
new ground for all of us to cope with, I think.
Mr. CARTER. So, I am sorry to interrupt. Real quickly before my
time elapses.
So, (a) how can we help with that? Because if, in fact, there is
a remedy in place yet, manufacturers are still using this, then obvi-
ously tell us how we can from this Committee standpoint help ad-
dress that so it is no longer a barrier. And then lastly, you guys
can answer this, whoever wants to, but lastly, I represent several
rural areas in Louisiana. And obviously, people have issues with
repair. In the city, there is access to more repair shops. How do you
handle, how do you deal with those rural areas who do not have
a plethora resources as relates to close proximity to have their
trucks repaired or their vehicles repaired?
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. I do not know if you are asking Ken or
myself, but the solution for repair in general is having more. The
more businesses that can form that can provide repair services lo-
cally, the more options there will be for our communities. So, it
would be very helpful, I think, for your constituents to be able to
use a local shop as opposed to having to drive to let’s say New Or-
leans. So what you could do would be to help support some of the
bills that are already in Congress. That will make things easier.
Mr. TAYLOR. I think one of the challenges is the amount of
training that is required for an individual that might be local in
a community far away from a dealer. The training and knowledge
that is required to effectively make a repair are extensive. And so
I guess, perhaps, if the repair shop were willing to pay a fee for
the training to help them perhaps do more, maybe not everything
they want to do but more, that could be arranged. But is that a
cost that that business is willing to bear?
Mr. CARTER. And going back to the add-on about what can we
do to assist in the area of the so-called intellectual property bar-
rier, is there something that we can do from this Committee’s
standpoint to assist with ferreting out that falsehood and forcing
them to do the right thing if they are, in fact, doing the wrong
thing?
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. Well, let me jump back in on that one.
There is a bill that was filed by Rep. Mondaire Jones and I think
Victoria Spartz in their Committee that was addressing a specific
problem of copyright law that does need to be fixed by Congress.
There is a longstanding prohibition on making tools to make it
easier to copy VCR tapes. That is how old it is. And it needs to be
updated because it is standing in the way of people building tools
that would be necessary to fix modern equipment. I do not mean
physical tools. I mean software tools. So that would be something
that would be very helpful.
Mr. CARTER. If you would be so kind as to send some informa-
tion to us I would greatly appreciate it.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you.
Next up we will recognize Representative Williams.
18
Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank you, Chairman. And thank all of you for
being here today, and Representative Tenney for helping us lead.
We are here today to discuss the notice of the Right to Repair.
As a small business owner, and in full disclosure, 89 years in the
car business, 51 years I have been in the business. Chrysler,
Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Chevrolet, you name it, for 51 years, and I am
also a rancher, calf-cow operation, Angus, Black Angus back in
Texas. So I understand this complex topic firsthand. Maybe as
much or more than anybody in this room. And it is not as cut and
dry as it may seem.
So I made a few notes here, and there is no organization to them
but it was commented earlier. Leveling the playing field. Well,
what the heck does that mean? Leveling the playing field. And I
know one of our witnesses is in the potato business. I am sure they
would not sell their potatoes at cost. In many cases we are asked
to do things at cost, and nobody knows what cost is anyway. That
is a phony word. And I cannot buy equipment. If I cannot buy the
equipment. If I cannot buy the equipment, I am out of business.
Well, you do not have to pay cash for the equipment. You can fi-
nance the equipment. You can also wrote 100 percent off of it this
year and take a tax deduction.
And someone said, too, that a lot of people, regardless of their
income class or whatever, are not getting repairs done, I fix every-
body. We do not ask them what their class is. So everybody is get-
ting fixed.
Independents, quite frankly, are the best customers I have got in
my car business. I have got six parts trucks. I am just going to put
another one in when I get back because we have got so much busi-
ness taken to independent mechanics. Independent people. They
are the best customers I have got. So they are getting good service.
And the truth of the matter is, if you cannot fix it, send it to the
franchise dealer. This happens all the time. Independent people
send it to us and we fix it. And the customer has no problem with
that.
Independents have access to parts. It is me. I have got millions
of dollars’ worth of parts and we will deliver them to you. We will
do everything. You have got access to parts.
And we talk about how complicated it is. Well, just go to the
dealer and get it fixed. Because I know what happens. You bring
it to me. I fix it. And you mark it up 10 percent. No problem. Ev-
erybody makes a little.
And all of us should remember this. The reason these repairs are
so hard is because the government has demanded this. Not con-
sumers, not me, not you. The government has demanded it. So,
let’s just understand that there is a pecking order here that works
and the government does not need to be involved in it.
And many proposals that we talk about tend to simply the issue
without addressing the serious consequences this type of govern-
ment intrusion will impose in the free market. And we have talked
about it. Government, when they get involved, write it off. It really
gets messed up and the consumer is the one that gets hurt.
Manufacturers make significant investments in research and de-
velopment of their products and services, and by forcing them to
19
share their models for third parties to excess it removes all incen-
tives to innovate. And remember, you have access. Okay?
And on top of that there needs to be significant discussions on
consumer privacy. We talked about that and data security. And
some of the data, it could be assessed if anyone had an open hand-
book, it is sensitive and proprietary.
We must ensure that we are not opening the door for hackers.
We all have a hacker story. And we could be just making their life
easy to take advantage of unknowing consumers. So it is critical we
look at this issue from all angles and proceed with caution before
we try to get the government more involved. And quit talking
about cost and quit talking about selling for nothing. Because if
you are selling at cost and selling for nothing there is no service
to anybody. I cannot buy parts. I cannot deliver the parts. So we
need to quit talking about that. The other side talks about it a lot
but profit is a really good word. That is why we are all in business.
So Mr. Taylor, how will your business ability compete to be af-
fected if right to repair legislation passes and what legislative pro-
posal do you believe would do the most harm to the equipment dis-
tributors’ industry and why that you represent and are?
Mr. TAYLOR. I would have to pick the parts topic. In my agricul-
tural business, we are an AGCO and a CLAAS dealer. We are not
John Deere. We are not Case IH. We are not the dominant player
but we have a good size business. And 75 percent of our profit for
that division comes from the parts business. We make an okay
amount selling a tractor, used or new. Service, we lose money just
because we are trying to get the customer service challenge done
and so far we have not solved that yet. So we rely extensively on
the parts profit just to stay open for that division. So I would say
that is probably the most frightening aspect of some of these pro-
posals is that parts will be sold at cost and then that would push
the burden back on the manufacturer, and suddenly the manufac-
turer would have to figure out how to distribute the parts and
whether that is through UPS or through some other channel. And
that is added cost to their business. And so there would be an infla-
tionary impact on that.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Chairman, I yield my time back. The proc-
ess works. Let’s keep it that way.
Chairman GOLDEN. We are going to recognize Representative
Peters.
Mr. PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Really interesting dis-
cussion.
On one hand you have got these repair shops just want to do a
good job for their customers and feel like sometimes the suppliers
or the manufacturers are too rigid. And on the other hand you have
got manufacturers or businesses that are worried that the small
shops will not maintain quality or privacy or intellectual property.
So it is a hard balance.
I was going to ask Mr. Taylor about the intellectual property and
security concerns, especially as technology continues to improve.
Tell me about the risks of the IP violations some of your Members
are worried about. What are the risks to them?
Mr. TAYLOR. The IP issue is more related to the manufacturers
than it is to us a dealer. I think the primary concern we would
20
have is the, well, environmental and safety both. Really to comply
with regulation, there are designs in both the engine technology,
exhaust technology that are high hurdles to reach. And the manu-
facturer spends a heck of a lot of R and D on that technology. We
are in the field and we are going to have to support the manufac-
turers’ expectations of that equipment in the field. Will we get
mixed up in an argument and a lawsuit over a product that has
been altered? Everyone sues everyone when there is a problem. I
think a dealer could be pulled in pretty easily to an IP problem.
The safety part of this, heavy equipment is pretty dangerous and
today some of the technology that is software based is sensors that
sense the proximity of a person or a vehicle. If any of that was
tampered with, I think we would all be pointing fingers at who al-
tered that machine so that they could avoid any of those restric-
tions. So I think the risk is when there is a violation, we are going
to be pulled into any of these kinds of problems. And the manufac-
turer is going to be concerned that its IP is out on the market.
Mr. PETERS. So Ms. Gordon-Byrne, so my understanding is now
that the FTC is taking action to enforce against a warning law
against bad actors that illegally restrict consumers’ choice of how
to fix their products, they are trying to enforce the law that we al-
ready have in the books, can you tell me if that is a satisfactory
situation and how that enforcement can help small businesses, or
what do we need to do beyond that?
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. If you could elaborate a little bit about
which particular enforcement action you are talking about because
I am not aware of all of them. I know a lot of them but not all.
Mr. PETERS. I do not have particular actions in mind. It is just
that there is existing law in the books about illegally restricting
consumers’ choice and why do you think the FTC has adequate au-
thority to enforce those laws today?
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. I am probably not qualified to say what
the FTC has the authority to do but what they have been doing is
something they could have been doing the past 20 years and it
would have been enormously helpful to not have the proliferation
of monopolized repair that we have today. So I am aware that they
are going after some particularly obvious cases. I think Harley-Da-
vidson, famous example. They were telling their customers that
they were not allowed to repair their stuff with an independent me-
chanic, which is actually contrary to federal law. So I am excited
about that.
Mr. PETERS. Okay. I mean, I also think that that is part of
what we have to weigh, too, in terms of creating new rules. I guess
Mr. Williams kind of hinted at that as well.
Mr. Clark, repair shops like yours, can only have a few, often a
few employees to help consumers keep their products operating.
How do consumers/customers react when you tell them about the
warning message they might receive to their phones if their phone
is repaired with aftermarket parts? And have you lost business be-
cause of that?
Mr. CLARK. So far the response has been such that we have not
lost any customers from that so far. There are some people who
have a lot of questions about it. They may not fully understand it
but frankly, they just deal with it because they have to. They do
21
not feel like they have a choice. They can have me fix their device
in an hour or they can drive and take an entire day and hope that
Apple will fix it. So, yeah, lack of choice does not help the fact.
That drives some of the reason why they do not seem to be both-
ered by that.
Mr. PETERS. Okay. Well, I appreciate it.
Mr. CLARK. Sure.
Mr. PETERS. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired and I yield
back. Thank you.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you.
We will now recognize Representative Stauber.
Mr. STAUBER. Well, thank you, Chair Golden, Ranking Member
Tenney for holding this really important hearing.
And I am grateful to be a part of it. On one hand the consumers
are looking for freedom to repair products they own in a timely and
cost-efficient manner. Why should rural Minnesotans have to wait
for engineers from Silicon Valley to come fix a product they would
happily fix themselves if given the chance? Minnesotans have al-
ways been a ‘‘fix it ourselves’’ kind of people.
On the other hand, we want manufacturers to continue to re-
search, innovate, and invest in the safety and efficacy of their prod-
ucts. The modernization of products we have seen over the last few
decades has been outstanding, but it has also created a very com-
plicated regulatory landscape. We must be thoughtful and consid-
erate as we consider this issue to ensure we do not have any unin-
tended consequences.
So Mr. Gerritsen, in your testimony you mentioned that you
made the conscious decision to only own farm equipment you can
repair yourself. Do you feel your farm has missed opportunities to
produce more should you have had more advanced equipment that
you had an ability to repair yourself?
Chairman GOLDEN. Sir, if you could unmute yourself.
Mr. GERRITSEN. Thank you for the question.
I would say that a farmer’s purpose is like any business and that
is to make the most profit for their efforts. Our interest is not in
increasing production. It could well come at a higher cost and we
would be making less. So our strategy has been to increase our
independence and our farm by ability by keeping as many things
within our control as we can.
So many years ago we saw, especially the sophisticated elec-
tronics and chips, that that was simply a direction we were not in-
terested in going in. So we do not, you know, increase in production
is not of a high importance to us. Maintaining viability, increasing
profitability, that is what is important to us, and I think that is
probably what is most important to most farmers.
Mr. STAUBER. And the second question, Mr. Gerritsen, do you
know other farmers who became as you suggest as vulnerable to
this more advanced equipment? And if so, what did they do to en-
sure?
Mr. GERRITSEN. Well, about 15 or 20 years ago I received a
phone call from an editor at one of the large farm magazines and
he was incredulous that he had somewhere picked up the idea that
we did not go for modern equipment that had chips in it. And I as-
sured him that our reasoning, you know, we felt that it was sound
22
and that, in fact, I could have given him at that time, I told this
to him, I could give him the names and phone numbers of half a
dozen farmers I know across the country that have the same phi-
losophy as we do. So it has been interesting to me that within the
last 4 to 5 years, the major media has picked up the fact that a
lot of farmers are finding that they can buy older American-made
tractors, say from the 1970s, buy the tractor, rebuild it, and for
$50,000 or less have a tractor that is the equivalent of a $200,000
to $300,000 tractor, one that they can repair.
So I think it is an increasing trend. I believe that some of the
equipment in terms of relation to the Farmgate value of crops, I
think some of the equipment has just become unaffordable for fam-
ily farmers. And being innovative, family farmers are finding a
good solution and that is using equipment, American-made equip-
ment.
Mr. STAUBER. Thank you very much for your answer.
The newly elected Member from Minnesota’s 1st District, Brad
Finstad is a farmer and he says that he gets up in the morning
knowing something is going to break and he is going to fix it him-
self, so.
Mr. Taylor, have you ever interacted with equipment where the
safety features had been overridden or manipulated for machine
performance?
Mr. TAYLOR. I keep forgetting to hit the button.
One of the most common safety items is a backup alarm. And
yes, I think during my career with some customers they operated
a machine without a backup alarm. And that is just a fundamental
safety factor there. So if I were to pick one that would be the one
that is most obvious that either it was disabled or it failed and
they continued to operate the machine even though the backup
alarm was——
Mr. STAUBER. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair, I am out of time. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you.
Next, we recognize Representative Flood.
Mr. FLOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
From Nebraska, right to repair, a complex issue. I am from the
state where I was in the legislature. One of the first states to really
confront this with a state regulation. And I understand the frustra-
tion of people, particularly farmers, that want to fix their own
equipment when it breaks down.
But before the federal government leaps into action pursuing a
federal right to repair mandate, we should carefully examine, and
I think something that we have not touched on enough, are some
of the self-repair functions that are already accessible. The Execu-
tive Director of the Digital Right to Repair Coalition, Ms. Gordon-
Byrne, shared that if we were to pursue right to repair as a na-
tional policy, we would have more local repair options. And I think
we are forgetting the value of self-repair. Some manufacturers are
increasingly offering customers remote support that can help them
troubleshoot through some of the most difficult equipment prob-
lems.
So Mr. Taylor, can you comment on self-repair, those options
available in the Caterpillar equipment that you sell?
23
Mr. TAYLOR. Yes, I can. And I will mention that a major trust
in Caterpillar’s strategy today is what is called services growth.
And services growth is all about providing more services to the cus-
tomer ultimately to drive more parts sales for Caterpillar, the man-
ufacturer. And so the amount of focus we have today on deter-
mining new services and new strategies to ultimately sell more
parts for Caterpillar, which is just a major goal of ours as a dis-
tributor, the focus has risen enormously in the last couple of years
in the field. Like I say, right on CAT’s site, and I have not myself
visited the site to review some of these repair procedures, but it is
Self-Service and it is a much more extensive list of possibilities
than ever was available before. We rarely wanted to give tools to
the customer in our past back in my grandfather’s generation,
maybe in my dad’s, too. But today, to maximize parts sales for the
equipment in the field, it means that we have to try every strategy
to do that. And this self-service strategy is one of those strategies
to put a genuine part in the hands of a customer versus a will-fit
aftermarket-type part.
So it used to be maybe the features were durability and produc-
tivity and resale value. Today it is fuel consumer. It is hours be-
tween oil changes. And if we can help that ‘‘do it myself’’ customer
buy the cab part to do the work themselves, we are one part ahead
every time we do that.
Mr. FLOOD. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. I want to touch on intellec-
tual property for a moment. If proprietary information is easily
made available to third parties, do you anticipate that manufactur-
ers will continue to invest in future research and development?
And I am looking for just a brief answer here.
Mr. TAYLOR. I will confess to being very confused about this
topic, that this information is available to the public first of all.
Mr. FLOOD. Right.
Mr. TAYLOR. And, no, if all of that was free off the shelf, you
would see much less investment.
Mr. FLOOD. And see, that is what is so interesting to me be-
cause property rights in Nebraska are at the top of Ag owner land-
owners’ lists. We are talking about real property rights. When you
talk about intellectual rights, I would think there would be a simi-
lar desire to protect those and to maintain the IP rights value.
I think it is important to note that in January of this year, a Chi-
nese national in Missouri plead guilty to conspiracy to commit eco-
nomic espionage. The man attempted to steal the algorithm behind
a farming software platform, proprietary technology was used to
boost the farmer’s productivity. The Department of Justice found
he was part of a program focused on advancing the Chinese effort
sin industry and technology and his plan was to bring the software
he stole back to China.
I would strongly caution that we caution against any federal ac-
tion that could inadvertently let our guard down against China.
And I think that is a real pressing threat. And would say that the
bigger priority for me, getting more broadband into rural American
so that we can first and foremost explore self-repair. Because I
think that is really the direction we should be going. So I yield
back. Thank you.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you.
24
I am going to do another round of questions and anyone remain-
ing is welcome to have more opportunities to ask questions as well.
I was telling the Ranking Member, just listening to people talk
about the issue of intellectual property, theft, particularly as it re-
lates to China, there is a good report out there available to the
public as well as to Members of Congress written by the AI Com-
mission which talks extensively about the current problem of intel-
lectual property theft. And it is massive, the scale of it. I think it
is astounding when you look at the numbers ranking in the billions
of dollars of lost revenue per year. So something I think Congress
should be looking at no matter what.
Even with no matter what we may or may not do as it relates
to right to repair, this is a bit problem that is taking place right
now.
Mr. Gerritsen, my family has a business where they are still op-
erating some pretty old equipment, some of it is actually older than
I am, honestly, so 1970s and early 1980s equipment as well. I think
one of the first challenges you start to see is the availability of
parts, and then even you reach a point where the parts are not
even available and then you have got to have people who start
learning how to machine their own parts if you want to continue
to repair and operate it. I am guessing that your family has coped
in similar ways.
Do you have concerns about the sustainability of the approach
that you have chosen to take as it relates to older equipment and
the ability to continue to repair it down the road? Or do you foresee
a future out there for a farm family such as yourselves, where you
would just have no choice but to make that move over to electronic
equipment?
Mr. GERRITSEN. Yeah. Congressman Golden, as you know,
farmers in Maine are survivors. We will survive. I think it is going
to be harder because of the proliferation of computer chips. But to
be truthful, what I am hoping is that because so many family farm-
ers are shifting to older equipment that this is going to trigger a
market response and that there will be manufacturers that find
that they can make a good living by manufacturing some of the
parts that, you know, may now be 50 years old, that there is a de-
mand for it. So I do think that American farmers are very innova-
tive and if the demand is shifting towards older equipment, I am
hoping that that is going to help make that repair parts available.
But, you know, by the time we have to get into chipped tractors,
I will not be around so I am here today trying to convey that we
have got a problem for family farmers ahead and part of the impor-
tant solution is to give freedom of access to repairing. And if a
farmer buys a piece of equipment, it should be understood that
they are buying the totality of it. It is not that they are buying sim-
ply the metal and not the brains behind it. And this is a traditional
right that we have always had. And I think that it is best to im-
prove that level playing field by decentralizing it and allowing as
much interaction across the economy as you can with as many
players as you can.
Chairman GOLDEN. You mentioned that your son took it upon
himself to go and get extra training so that he knew how to do
these repairs in-house. And while I think I understand correctly
25
that it is your opinion that you, as the owner of the equipment,
ought to have access to information that would help you under-
stand even what needs to be repaired, et cetera, the right to have
access to that information.
But I just want to clarify. You do not expect when it comes to
like new parts, you expect that you would pay not at cost but rath-
er that anyone selling you that part has the right to make some
form of profit; is that accurate?
Mr. GERRITSEN. Of course. We are all business people and we
all have to make a profit on what we are doing to maintain it. So,
of course.
But, on the other hand, you know, 20 years ago I bought a dis-
tributor cap at Ag Co and back then it was $75. And it was prob-
ably, you know, had a couple of dollars’ worth of parts I int. So,
you know, reasonable profit is a good idea. And sometimes I think
under monopoly conditions I think reasonableness is kind of
thrown out the window.
Mr. TAYLOR. I might take issue with that statement that there
is an unreasonable profit on a part like that. The population of that
particular machine that is 50 years old is so low that for a manu-
facturer to design and begin again manufacturing such parts, prob-
ably the cost is not even represented by the cost of that part that
you paid. It is such a small population to address with that part.
If it is not economical, no one is going to do it.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you.
More questions from you?
Ms. TENNEY. Yes, thank you.
Chairman GOLDEN. Of course.
Ms. TENNEY. I will just ask a couple. I want to kind of finish
up on where I was, and I believe I did not get a chance to follow
up I think with Ms. Gordon-Byrne.
You made kind of an extraordinary statement. You said that re-
garding copyright law and processes that they are already available
and accessible and that the exemption under the 1201 and that the
manufacturers were pretty disingenuous. So you did not say they
were completely disingenuous but there are some concerns there.
I just wanted to kind of clarify, and maybe you could clarify for
me an explanation that intellectual property is a lot more than just
copyrights. I just wrote this down on a sheet of paper and under
copyright law I am copyrighted on this now automatically and I
choose to put it in the Library of Congress and, you know, that is
pretty simple. But when you get into patents, trademarks, trade se-
crets, and other more detailed work that somebody does, it is sort
of a founding principle of innovation in our country that you create
something, you get it protected. That is why we have an elaborate
patent law process.
So, I am just curious as to if you would be willing as I asked in
my previous round of questions, on some kind of compromise where
the manufacturer could actually contract say with Mr. Clark and
say that we would like to train you and have you in a position
where you can actually have the credibility. You know, whether it
is financially based on your reputation, based on your willingness
to sign maybe a nondisclosure agreement and other protections for
that intellectual property. Is that something that would be consid-
26
ered and is considered under the current laws that are in play out-
side of the automotive industry?
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. Well, it is actually not my compromise to
make; it is a choice of the legislatures.
Ms. TENNEY. I understand that. But would you propose that?
Would that be something that would be acceptable to you? Because
it protects intellectual property. The exposure to liability for manu-
facturers, which has been described by Mr. Taylor, and then, yeah,
protect the ability of someone’s right to repair. I think there is
maybe a middle ground here because I do not like to look at this
as a zero sum game; it is either all or nothing.
And as Mr. Taylor pointed out in the situation with the vintage
farm equipment, it is similar when you have people that are repair-
ing vintage cars. That is expensive stuff to get, you know, if you
want to repair an old car.
So is there a compromise that can be made where we can nego-
tiate and make an agreement with people like Mr. Clark to be able
to handle some of the repairs without compromising the intellec-
tual property or the rights or the innovation of manufacturers? Or
the sort of paradigm supply chain that we have in place now?
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. Absolutely. There is a lot of room for dis-
cussion. And I think we have to start on a little bit more of a fac-
tual basis which is that repairing things is not what a lot of people
assume it is. It is literally the process of figuring out that some-
thing is broken, buying the spare part, and stuffing the spare part
in. There is very little beyond that that is repair. All of these con-
cerns about modifying emissions and chipping tractors, that is just
not repair.
So what we are really asking for is the right to do something ex-
tremely simple that has become overcomplicated by these ques-
tions. And absolutely, we want to protect IP rights.
I wrote a book. I have the copyright on that book. Many of our
Members are also manufacturers and they have rights. They have
patent rights. And we are not trying to interfere with any of those
rights.
So, yeah. We can talk through all of these issues. I think most
of them are nonissues to tell you the truth because when you get
down to the nuts and bolts about what fixing something really is,
it is not what a lot of people think it is.
Ms. TENNEY. Right. But if I may reclaim my time on that.
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. Of course.
Ms. TENNEY. You are talking about sort of saying that there
really are not any concerns about this. And I think of my son is
in the Marines. Mr. Golden was in the Marines. We were talking
about some of the equipment there. When we leave behind billions
of dollars’ worth of equipment in a country or somewhere and we
worry about reverse engineering and our hard work and innovation
and money that went into creating these products, whether it was
by the Department of Defense and the taxpayers or by a company
that is investing in R and D, to say that that is just, you know,
look, we do not have respect for what you have put into that, you
kind of said, well, these concerns are not really there.
My concern is that we do have, you know, just because somebody
creates a little device and it looks just like a block, there is a lot
27
of engineering that could have gone into that because it is critical
whether it is an airline part or something that would save lives.
We talked about off the record here about just the environmental
issues. So I am just saying I think that there is a middle ground.
It is not just all or nothing. Like, let’s just open it up but let’s give
people in a competitive way the option to be able to negotiate what
they feel that they can comfortably reveal and allow the right to
repair. Because I do not think a manufacturer does not want the
ability to repair out there. I think they want to be able to find a
way to protect themselves and exposure to liability, and also make
sure the consumers are happy. So I think there is a middle ground.
I was just thinking in the legislation.
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. No, I completely agree.
Ms. TENNEY. It is up to you about the time. You are the Chair.
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. Oh, I am sorry. I completely agree about
there being middle ground. But when it comes to repair, it is like
we have to talk through some of these issues and not just go over
them because there are a lot of assumptions that are incorrect. And
when the Federal Trade Commission did their study and I was at
the study, they spent 2 years investigating all these claims. And
they found literally only a single instance of a single phone that
may have hurt somebody to talk about the safety problems. And
the auto industry was there and the agriculture industry was
there. It is not like they were ignored. So we have to make sure
we are dealing with reality. We need some evidence of the prob-
lems.
One of the things that was clear today is that parts pricing is a
problem. And we learned about that about a year ago and we im-
mediately said, let’s fix it. So there are a variety of state legisla-
tures that have already looked at language that allows for, obvi-
ously, people need to make a profit.
So what was kind of essentially a drafting mistake is now not a
problem. But we just have to get that information out there. There
is nothing in the legislation that we are proposing that is asking
for any form of software.
I came from the computer industry. My dad designed computers.
I know that you can have a computer with software on it and not
violate anybody’s IP.
Ms. TENNEY. If I could ask you one last question.
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. Sure.
Ms. TENNEY. Of all the legislation that has been enacted in the
states, and you cited that there were 43—I am not sure I got that
one right.
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. Forty-three attempts.
Ms. TENNEY. Which state, and who is out there, has the best
model legislation that you would propose?
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. Well, I have to go with the bill that we
got passed this year in New York.
Ms. TENNEY. Okay.
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. But that is still not comprehensive. Agri-
culture and heavy equipment are not in the bill. Home appliances
are not in the bill. Wheelchairs are not in the bill. No medical
equipment is in the bill.
Ms. TENNEY. Okay. But you would say New York?
28
Ms. GORDON-BYRNE. Well, New York is the furthest along. Ob-
viously, they passed it. It is a pretty good template.
Ms. TENNEY. Thank you.
Mr. TAYLOR. If I could add a comment. I really do not agree
that the repair process is simple and not complex and that we are
really not talking about, I guess, it is not simple. In our case, the
tooling that could be required, the testing, diagnostic equipment
that could be required to complete a repair is hugely expensive and
may be required for a particular repair, whether that is in the shop
or in the field. And so that is just one aspect of how our industry
is very different from some of the other industries and under dis-
cussion here.
And if I could just add one other related comment. I find it kind
of ironic that we are here talking about repair in general. Repair
things. Our country over the last 40 years stopped producing tech-
nicians, people that like to repair things. There are a few farmers
that are still producing some great people who we love to hire but
a very small quantity today. In all the trades and for us service
technicians, people are not on the street. They are not coming out
of the schools. We have—means to go create people, to attract them
into the business, train them, time on the job. Huge incentives
such as signing bonuses, all kinds of things.
So I would just make a point that our whole country needs a bet-
ter repair program, and that includes everybody. And today there
is a dire shortage of people available to repair all of the things that
us white collar people love to use in our work and in our pleasure.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you. That was a good exchange.
That is going to wrap it up for us here today. Very quickly I will
just say, of course, thank you, all four of you, for taking the time
to join us today. And for answering our questions. Clearly, there
is a lot that we want to look at here in this Committee and in Con-
gress as it relates to repair restrictions which can create significant
headaches for consumers. As we have heard from individuals like
Mr. Clark or for small business owners, as we heard from people
like Mr. Gerritsen, by ensuring a right to repair we can help in-
crease competition across a variety of industries. I think we
learned today you have got to look at the differences between var-
ious industries, of course, and products, but hopefully, today’s hear-
ing serves as a jumping-off point for ongoing conversations about
policies that can help protect the rights of consumers and small
businesses in order to be able to repair the products that they now
own and prevent manufacturers from having undue monopolies on
repair.
So we look forward to working as a Committee to explore bipar-
tisan actions to accomplish this goal.
And without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days to
submit statements and supporting materials for the record.
If there is no further business before the Committee, without ob-
jection, we will adjourn. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:41 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
29
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