NY’s ‘Right To Repair’ Law Was Neutered By Lobbyists And Governor Hochul After Passage. Now, Some Lawmakers Are Trying To Fix It.

In late 2022, the state of New Yorkfinally passednew right to repair legislation after years of activist pressure. The bill, which went live last month, gives New York consumers the right to fix their electronic devices themselves or have them more easily repaired by an independent repair shop, instead of being forced to only obtain repairs through costly manufacturer repair programs.

The problem: after it was passed, lobbyists convinced New York Governor Kathy Hochul to water the bill down almost to the point of uselessness. As a result, the bill doesn't actually cover many of the sectors where annoying repair monopolization efforts are the worst, including cars, medical devices, agricultural hardware, E-bikes, home alarm systems, or power tools.

The law also only covers any tech product sold in New Yorkon or after July 1, 2023. Additional restrictions, added by industry and Hochul at the last second, force consumers to buy entire repair assemblages" instead of individual parts. Hochul didn't really bother to give a useful explanation as to why she lobotomized the law in such a fashion, but the action generally speaks for itself.

But New York Assemblymember Patricia Fahy has introducedAssembly Bill 8955, which aims to restore the bill to look something like the version that voters actually approved:

The bill that was passed by the legislature bears very little resemblance to the statute as signed - leaving many loopholes that have now been addressed in A8955," she said.

A8955 would backdate the product coverage start date to July 1, 2021, expand the definition of an OEM, eliminate the exclusion of repair assemblages and parts pairing," and eliminate some of the product exclusions (you can see all modified changes here). Fahy seems to think the updated version of the bill has a good chance of passing given the popularity of right to repair reforms. We'll see.

While companies like Apple have nabbed headlines for doing a 180 on right to repair," that often hasn't actually been the case. Companies like Apple remain very active when it comes to whittling down or rewording reforms so they're sometimes effectively useless via proxy policy orgs like Technet.

Despite this, right to repair reform continues to see widespread, bipartisan public support. All told, Massachusetts, Colorado, New York, Minnesota, Maine and California have all passed some flavor of right to repair legislation, and the momentum shows no sign of slowing down, even if industry has had some notable success ensuring these laws aren'tquiteliving up to their full potential.