HN Reader

even when they do something nominally good, they gotta send it through the Propagandaministerium apparatus to glue on all the party-approved buzz words and various other bits and bobs so it reads like your grandma's facebook wall.

Seems good but unlikely to accomplish anything. Manufacturers obviously don't want to make third-party repairs easier because they think they'll lose money, so if the EPA says one excuse isn't valid anymore they'll just find another one. This new guidance doesn't ask or even suggest that manufacturers actually do anything, it just says "hey if you want to help your customers repair stuff, we'd be ok with it".

You don't have to read this comment, I'm just throwing down a marker for myself.

I think this is a good policy direction. I don't like the rhetoric and I understand that this as much a political decision as anything else, but I'm glad to see it regardless. A year from now if someone says "you reflexively oppose anything Trump's administration does," I'll have this to look back on.

(Shoes at TSA checkpoints too, btw.)

This, as others have noted is not a right to repair, it's a right to pollute.

There's a push for agricultural right to repair.[1] That falls under the Federal Trade Commission, not the Environmental Protection Administration. That's about parts and tool availability for the whole machine, not just the Diesel power train. This new announcement has zero effect on that.

Here are the controls of a modern John Deere combine.[2] Very little of that has anything to do with engine control. It's being able to fix that, and all the sensors and actuators connected to it, that's important. Diesels are rather reliable by now.

[1] https://nationalaglawcenter.org/ftc-files-suit-against-john-...

[2] https://www.deere.com.au/assets/images/region-4/products/har...

For all the things you can say about this administration's EPA, this is a great thing.

This will go absolutely nowhere and personally am tired of hearing about some good bills that become nothing. The US will not even let the military have the right to repair. https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/us_military_right_to_.... The US is beholden to defense contractors and corporations. The government cares very little if at all about the quality of life of anyone

> Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advanced American farmers and equipment owners’ lawful right to repair their farm and other nonroad diesel equipment.

> This is another win for American farmers and ranchers by the Trump Administration. By clarifying manufacturers can no longer use the Clean Air Act to justify limiting access to repair tools or software, we are reaffirming the lawful right of American farmers and equipment owners to repair their farm equipment

This seems to be very specific to repairing diesel engines. I can imagine this is not the win for farmers that they're trying to make it sound like.

i just dont see why anti tampering provisions are a thing at all. set rules on factory config and then do random checks and fine anyone actually running their equipment with emissions above the limit. whats happening now is basically you can get fined for using a tune that lets you break the limits in theory even if you never actually do it

I mean this failed with the automotive industry. Many different strong laws were passed over the decades to ensure that anyone could repair their car, you can't refuse to sell them parts, you can't sue them for aftermarket, etc. etc.

The end result? You can't do anything to a modern car without going to a manufacturer and using their locked-in ecosystem entirely. They have been caught doing every trick they were told not to do and they get away with it.

> ...they are finally getting the regulatory relief to break free from burdensome Green New Scam rules and...

One of the worst Trump-isms that will out-live him is how normalized name-calling has become, even in US agency press briefings. Just childish and shameful.

After reading over the EPA letter[0], I can't help but wonder whether the final paragraph gives a "bad faith out" to John Deere and their ilk. You could disingenuously interpret the "increment of time necessary to effectuate the repair" to mean the time it would take an official John Deere service technician with a full suite of tools to make the repair.

The following sentence admittedly muddies it a bit, but in general the suggestion that John Deere can still be the arbiter for when the machine can / cannot run without the environmental system in the loop seems like a significantly less meaningful change than what is described on the EPA.gov website.

[0] https://dis.epa.gov/otaqpub/display_file.jsp?docid=64859&fla... -- It's only 3 pages, very quick read

> The Clean Air Act has long crushed family farmers across America – but under the Trump Administration, they are finally getting the regulatory relief to break free from burdensome Green New Scam rules and focus on the vital job of feeding, clothing, and fueling America and the world

Huh, interesting framing here. Did some clever Right to Repair advocate figure out that they could get pro-consumer action through by phrasing it as anti-Clean Air Act?

I'm not too hopeful for this shift surviving contact with John Deere's counter-advocacy though. Remember the flip-flopping on sending ICE after farmhands and hotel/casino staff? That ultimately seems have landed on the maximalist deport-them-all stance on account of Miller's proximity to Trump's ear. I doubt there's someone with personal stakes so close to power advocating for Right to Repair, so the lobbyists will likely win this.

Why EPA and not FTC?

Repeal intellectual property law. No more patents. No more owning concepts inherent to physics.

Why limited to farmers? Everyone should have the right to repair, and it shouldn't just apply to hardware. That right should extend to software. Everyone should have the Digital Human Right to Adversarial Interoperability.

Thankfully with things like browser automation, we are taking that right from the gatekeepers and rent seekers.

If I'm reading this correctly, it's basically saying "the manufacturers interpretation of the Clean Air Act is wrong" and that's it? How does this move the needle on right to repair at all? Maybe it'll require some work on the manufacturers part to come up with a new excuse but that's it.