Right to Repair for Oregon in 2020

Posted on April 18, 2019 by Samuel Pastrick

Tags, Telecommunications

Editor’s Note: The House Committee on Business and Labor held an informational hearing for HB 2688 on April 22. Though the hearing was purely informational, it was an important opportunity for CUB and other advocates to communicate the benefits of Oregon right to repair. CUB continues to push for right to repair legislation in 2020 and we need your help.

Oregon consumers and third-party repair shops deserve equal access to the same repair information as product manufacturers. The manufacturers, however, are dead-set on maintaining their repair monopoly. Adopting a right to repair law here in Oregon would benefit all Oregonians by ending this inappropriate monopoly.

CUB, along with our key ally on this topic, the Oregon Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG), championed HB 2688 during this legislative session. Disappointingly, the Legislature refused to take up the issue in 2019. Both CUB and OSPIRG now set our sights on 2020 and need your help to tell the Legislature that Oregonians deserve the right to repair at a public hearing before the House Committee on Business and Labor on Monday, April 22 (Earth Day).

The central idea behind “right to repair” or “fair repair” is far more straightforward than industry opponents portray. In fact, you can distill right to repair down to the basic principle of “if you own it, you should be able to fix it.”

Regardless of whether a consumer purchases a smartphone or a tractor, they don’t truly own whatever they choose (or often need) to purchase unless they’re empowered to either repair the product themselves or pay someone else to repair it for them. The reality, however, is that an increasing number of product manufacturers refuse to share essential repair and diagnostic information with consumers and non-manufacturer-affiliated repair shops, for the simple reason that it benefits their bottom line.

Powerful corporations like Apple, Microsoft, Verizon, Caterpillar, John Deere, and even medical giant Johnson and Johnson, as well as a growing cadre of obscure though highly influential industry lobby groups, all oppose right to repair laws – both at the state and federal level – because they all stand to lose money. Ultimately, wiping out competition to corner a product’s market from end-to-end is good for business, but bad for you and me.

Consumers pay again and again, both up and downstream the product supply chain. Not only does a new iPhone today cost upward of $1,000, the consumer who purchases the phone must then accept that if anything goes wrong, even something as common as a broken screen, their only viable repair option is the help desk at an Apple or Apple-affiliated store. The same is true for various other products from a growing list of manufacturers.

Thankfully, states can rewrite this story. In fact, Massachusetts already paved the way in 2012 regarding automobile repair. As a direct result of that state-level bill, which simply required repair information transparency from the auto manufacturers, the industry on the whole adopted a nationwide policy beginning in 2019 for all new vehicles. The same can happen here in Oregon, especially if the Legislature started with digital electronic devices (phone, tablet, e-reader, etc.).

Right to repair for digital electronic devices recognizes that we live in a digital world where people need daily access to the Internet, at minimum. In addition to reducing electronic waste, bringing right to repair to Oregon would create a new market for used digital electronic devices. This is important because roughly 20 percent of Oregonians go without a broadband (highspeed Internet) subscription. In several Oregon counties, that number is higher than 30 percent. And while several factors contribute to Oregonians’ low broadband adoption, the inability of many households, particularly rural and lower-income, to acquire inexpensive digital electronic devices aggravates the situation.

With Oregon right to repair, not only would consumers be able to extend the useful life of their various devices, they would find greater incentive to donate their old devices to third party repair shops, who would then distribute the used devices to individuals and families at low- or no-cost.

In fact, a handful of community organizations like Free Geek, Next Step Recycling, and Garten already do this important work but continue to lack essential repair and diagnostic information from the device manufacturers. Right to repair would provide these organizations, consumers generally, and a groundswell of new repair businesses across the state with the appropriate tools and resources to repair Oregonians’ digital electronic devices.

You can help CUB bring right to repair to Oregon in 2020 by signing on as a supporter today! Stay tuned to our blog and social media channels (links below) for continuing policy updates.

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