Sponsors (3)
The bill significantly expands owners' and independent repairers' legal access to repair materials, data, and tools—lowering repair costs and boosting competition—while creating disclosure, enforcement, and safety/IP trade-offs that may raise manufacturer costs, prompt litigation, and require careful rulemaking to avoid unintended harms.
Farmers, equipment owners, and rural repair shops can obtain manuals, parts lists, software SBOMs, firmware, and repair tools on fair terms, reducing repair time and out-of-service losses and lowering repair costs.
Owners gain stronger legal protections to repair and authorize third-party access to equipment-generated data (including prohibitions on conditioning parts/tools on registration or becoming an authorized provider), increasing control and data portability.
Federal enforcement by the FTC (including the ability to seek civil remedies and escalating daily penalties) gives consumers and repairers a federal remedy and a stronger deterrent against unfair or deceptive manufacturer practices.
OEMs are likely to lose some aftermarket revenue from parts, tools, and paid documentation, which could be passed on as higher equipment purchase prices or reduced ongoing manufacturer support.
Expanded FTC enforcement combined with steep escalating daily penalties (up to $5,000/day) raises compliance costs and litigation risk for manufacturers (including small OEMs), which may increase prices or deter small-market entrants.
Ambiguities about what counts as “fair and reasonable” access and the §1201 circumvention carve-outs could trigger prolonged litigation between OEMs and independent repairers, creating legal costs and uncertainty for farmers and repair shops.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Introduced October 28, 2025 by Peter Welch · Last progress October 28, 2025
Requires farm equipment makers to give farmers and independent repair shops access to parts, tools, software, firmware, diagnostic data, and repair documentation on fair and reasonable terms. It also creates a limited right-to-repair by allowing circumvention of digital locks for diagnosis, repair, security research, and interoperability, while protecting trade secrets and safety/emissions rules. Enforcement is handled by the Federal Trade Commission, which must write implementing rules and may impose daily civil penalties on OEMs that refuse to supply required materials. The law preserves certain limits: it does not force disclosure of trade secrets beyond what is needed for repairs and it forbids enabling permanent disabling of safety or emissions controls or other illegal modifications.