California assembly member to introduce 'right to repair' legislation for electronics

Susan Talamantes Eggman, a member of the California Assembly, has announced that she will introduce the California Right to Repair Act, which would require manufacturers of electronics to make diagnostic and repair information, as well as equipment or service parts, available to product owners and to independent repair shops.

“The Right to Repair Act will provide consumers with the freedom to have their electronic products and appliances fixed by a repair shop or service provider of their choice, a practice that was taken for granted a generation ago but is now becoming increasingly rare in a world of planned obsolescence,” Eggman says.

Repairing and reusing electronics is a more efficient use of the scarce materials that go into manufacturing them and also can stimulate local economies, a news release from Eggman’s office states.

Eggman's proposed legislation has the support of numerous environmental and consumer protection organizations. 

“People shouldn’t be forced to ‘upgrade’ to the newest model every time a replaceable part on their smartphone or home appliance breaks,” says Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, Sacramento, says. “These companies are profiting at the expense of our environment and our pocketbooks as we become a throw-away society that discards over 6 million tons of electronics every year.”

Kit Walsh, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, headquartered in San Francisco, says, "The bill is critical to protect independent repair shops and a competitive market for repair, which means better service and lower prices. It also helps preserve the right of individual device owners to understand and fix their own property.”

"Consumers Union thanks Assembly Member Eggman for her efforts to ensure consumers have the choice to fix their own electronic devices or have them fixed by an independent repair servicer,” says Maureen Mahoney, a San Francisco-based policy analyst for Consumers Union. “Consumers are now being forced to go back to the manufacturer for even simple repairs or refurbishing or to throw out the device and buy a new one. We look forward to working with Assembly Member Eggman to secure this important ownership right for consumers."

Emily Rusch, executive director of Sacramento-based CALPIRG, says, “We should be working to reduce needless waste—repairing things that still have life—but companies use their power to make things harder to repair. Repair should be the easier, more affordable choice, and it can be; but, first, we need to fix our laws.”

She adds, “Our recent survey, Recharge Repair, showed a surge in interest in additional repair options after Apple announced battery issues. The Right to Repair Act would give people those options."

California joins 17 other states that have introduced similar legislation: Washington, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia.