Sen. Warren says John Deere is breaking promises with right to repair

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is pressing John Deere on its commitment to right-to-repair provisions. She said the tractor giant’s omission of certain information in product manuals could constitute a violation of the Clean Air Act. 

Right-to-repair advocates say everyone should be allowed to do standard maintenance on electronics and machinery.

When repair rights are brought up, it’s generally in regards to being able to replace a battery in your mobile phone or a screen on your laptop. However, John Deere has continually caught the eye of advocates in recent years.

Its equipment has become increasingly reliant on computer software. For years, the company basically blocked owners and independent repair shops from getting what they needed to access and fix the equipment. If something broke, it had to go through an authorized dealer.

“[Vehicle] technology is terrific,” Warren said during an event in February with Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. “It saves lives. It keeps us safer. It is more convenient, but it can also be used to create a monopoly where I could only go to one place to have my car repaired. And ultimately, that’s bad for consumers.”

After years of fighting right to repair, John Deere voluntarily signed a memorandum of understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) in January 2023.

That MOU was an agreement to make tools and documentation available so farmers and shops outside of Deere’s network could make repairs. 

In a letter sent to John Deere Wednesday, Oct. 2, Warren said Deere told customers that it recently discovered equipment manuals may be missing information that tells customers they have the right to repair anywhere they choose, more than a year after it signed the document with the AFBF.

Warren wrote:

“This exclusion of language informing customers of their rights not only undercuts farmers’ ability to repair their equipment, but may also be illegal. The Clean Air Act, which governs emissions from all mobile sources of air pollution, including tractors and other farm equipment, directs the Environmental Protection Agency to require manufacturers to provide ‘any and all information needed to make use of the emission control diagnostics system…and such other information including instructions for making emission related diagnosis and repairs.’

“The law specifies that ‘no such information may be withheld…by the manufacturer to franchised dealers or other persons engaged in the repair, diagnosing, or servicing of motor vehicles or motor vehicle engines.'”

John Deere has previously maintained that by keeping its systems locked down, it is adhering to environmental regulations.

“Where we differ with the right to repair folks is that that software, in many cases, is regulated,” Jahmy Hindman, John Deere’s chief technology officer, told the Verge’s DeCoded podcast in 2021. “So let’s take the diesel engine example. We are required, because it’s a regulated emissions environment, to make sure that diesel engine performs at a certain emission output, nitrous oxide particle matter, etc, and so on. Modifying software changes that right? It changes the output characteristics of the emissions of the engine. And that’s a regulated device. So we’re pretty sensitive to changes that would impact that.”

But the Environmental Protection Agency rejected that defense. And Sen. Warren is pointing directly at the verbiage in the Clean Air Act, which specifically references withholding information. 

“No such information may be withheld…by the manufacturer to franchised dealers or other persons engaged in the repair, diagnosing, or servicing of motor vehicles or motor vehicle engines,” the act reads. That includes “instructions for making emission related diagnosis and repairs.”

That’s where Warren claims John Deere isn’t keeping “their end of the bargain.”

Meanwhile, over in the House, Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., and Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., introduced the Fair Repair Act in May of this year.

“That is the incarnation of environmentalism, that is what we believe in this country, that you are a steward of your stuff,” Gluesenkamp Perez, who owned an auto repair shop in Washington before heading to Congress, told Straight Arrow News back in June. “You don’t just throw s— away, right? You fix it, you maintain it, you have a relationship to it beyond one of just consumption. You understand how it works.”

For more than a hundred years, that’s been the farmer’s way. Farming advocacy groups say not being able to repair the higher-tech equipment themselves costs them $4 billion per year. Deere has said for years that it is committed to enabling customers to repair their own products.