Right-to-Repair Bill is Introduced in California, 20th State This Year, Says iFixit
California is the 20th state this year to introduce right-to-repair legislation, said iFixit Monday. AB-1163, introduced by Assemblymember Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton), would require electronics manufacturers to make service literature and equipment or parts available to product owners and to…
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regulated, independent repair shops. “Consumers should have the right to choose their repair provider,” said the nonprofit iFixit. Increasing independent repair options “will encourage people to fix the electronics and appliances they already own, rather than toss their broken belongings and buy new ones,” it said. Overcoming tech lobby opposition to get legislation passed and enacted is a tall task, but right-to-repair advocates will take every victory they can get, iFixit said: “This month Minnesota became the first state in Right to Repair history to pass legislation through two state committees.” One California consumer, Andrew Keates, thinks devising a “repair-ability rating would be a useful addition to product labeling,” he commented to the FTC, as posted Tuesday in docket FTC-2019-0013 in the agency's inquiry into manufacturer limitations on third-party repairs (see 1903150055). “We label dangerous goods as such,” and labeling products as repairable “would be equally valid,” he said. “If items are repairable,” said Keates, “somebody like me would repair them and we might even start a secondary market for repaired goods, avoiding them landing in landfills.” He recently repaired a desktop PC by fitting it with a new power supply, he said. He would have repaired the power supply itself if he had had access to a repair manual, he said: “I imagine at least part of the old power supply is now sitting somewhere in a landfill.”