EPA Advances Farmers' Right to Repair

The way this is framed, it doesn't even sound like the goal is to affect this dynamic at all. Rather it's to create a loophole of "temporarily" bypassing emission systems, such that if you delete and get caught you can just pinky swear that it's temporary for a repair that you're about to complete real soon. So the only real goal seems to be implicitly rolling back emissions enforcement across the board.

Actual right to repair action would focus on making it so individuals are able to self-repair the emissions control systems to function as designed. So this really just seems like yet another instance of a lofty idea being abused as cover for the destructionist agenda.

For automobiles, this has been the case - that the owner is responsible the vehicle goes out of spec... and the owner can also do a lot of customization of their vehicle.

For heavy machinery (which tractors fall into), the manufacture is almost always on the hook for any modification that the owner makes.

https://www.farm-equipment.com/articles/18110-what-you-need-...

> Here’s one real-life scenario that Natalie Higgins, vice president of government relations and general counsel for EDA, shared during a recent presentation for the United Equipment Dealers Assn. “An Ohio equipment owner purchased a tractor and then installed a turbocharger on the engine. The tractor owner sustained injuries and then sued both the manufacturer and the equipment dealer, alleging that his injuries were the result of negligence on the part of the manufacturer and dealer. Remember, neither the dealer nor the manufacturer were involved in the turbochargers installation.”

> ...

> And, if you service equipment that has been chipped, the warranty will most likely be denied and you will not be paid for your work. “That can also put your dealership in a sticky situation if technicians in the shop are not conveying to the rest of the dealership what is going in,” says Wareham. F

> Financial consequences can be harsh for not following the law. Under federal law 40 CFR § 89.1006, the penalty for a dealer who removes or renders inoperative emissions controls is subject to a penalty of $32,500 for each violation. Wareham says that one manufacturer of chipping software was initially fined $300,000 by the EPA and then $6 million to ensure future compliance with the Clean Air Act. “The EPA has stated that their intent is to crack down on defeat devices in 2020,” says Wareham.

> A dealer may face liability issues when customers tamper with the equipment they purchased, even if a dealer had nothing to do with the modification. For example, in instances in Ohio and Oregon, customers were injured as a result of modifications and dealers were sued.

She’s actually pretty cogent for 90 years old.

She does watch too much CNN though, winds her up a fair bit. Though at that age, your world tends to shrink so at least it gives her something to do.

Older engines had no computers. But computer control allows things that are needed to meet emissions like variable valve timing and whatnot. Also, engines are supposed to detect faults in emissions control systems and throw an error code.

So they brought in ECUs, but they DRMed them. Now they said it's so people can't tamper with emissions, but they DRMed everything to the point where now you have to take it to the dealer for servicing.

Do they need DRM to prevent people from tampering with emissions? No, they could have ringfenced it like some devices with radio transmitters do. Does DRM in the ECU prevent people tampering with emissions controls? Also no. There are people doing EGR deletes and whatnot on Tier 4 engines all the time.

But they were able to use emissions as the wedge to do what they really wanted to do: make their equipment not third-party serviceable.

By the way I think this also is a microcosm of the failure of the liberal order. The government should have cracked down hard on manufacturers doing this to begin with. The fact that they allowed manufacturers to turn their customers into serfs "in the name of emissions" obviously just ended up discrediting emissions control.

> Boston, MA – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Deere & Company (John Deere) accusing the company of undermining its own “right-to-repair” agreements and evading its responsibilities under the Clean Air Act by failing to grant its customers the right to repair their own agricultural equipment.

AUGUST 16, 2023 - The EPA finally refutes John Deere, dealership arguments against Right to Repair https://pirg.org/articles/the-epa-finally-refutes-john-deere...

> On August 4, after prodding for more than a year by PIRG and our allies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent an on-the-record letter to the National Farmers Union in support of Right to Repair. The letter clearly refutes manufacturers’ and dealers’ accusations that repair access facilitates emissions tampering and therefore violates environmental laws.

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Note that this started in the previous administration and the EPA was chastising John Deer three years ago on this issue.

It's simply easier for them to take all the extra profit they're getting and deflect lawsuits. From an American standpoint, that means the manufacturers are getting too much out of the deal and the only way to fix that is to make the lawsuits more painful. Because it's not like it's manufacturers vs. the public - it's really the manufacturers vs. third-party repairers AND the public.

There's also a standard for the dongles (which specifies a DLL export interface from a driver, amusingly) called J2534 so you don't need a separate hardware interface for each make, although to your point, the way the laws around J2534 were written was too lax and some manufacturers have realized that there is a loophole where only certain diagnostic tasks like module reflashing need to be possible over J2534.

Also worth noting that reverse engineered software has generally not been majorly threatened by manufacturers in the automotive space; Forscan for Ford, VCDS and OBD11 for VW, and so on are all quite popular.

Unfortunately "security" restrictions especially in the EU and the uprise of ADAS systems has made things a lot harder; most makes now have some online challenge/response cryptography (ie VW SFD) for diagnostics where previously they had offline login, and most ADAS and camera systems require extremely expensive calibration jigs (this is a valid technical problem, but with no incentive to reduce cost or make these systems accessible, they end up being comically expensive).

Anyway the situation in automotive is way better than the situation in equipment and ag, so I don't think it's entirely fair to say that regulation was a complete failure.

At least one of the excuses used by car manufacturers to not reveal details/etc on their engines has been that "modification could cause it to fall outside of emissions specifications." I don't see why Deere et all wouldn't try the excuse.

Hey, this might be a case of "enemy of my enemy is my friend." If the Right needs to use the "anti clean air" angle to convince their base, so that we can take a baby step towards a DRM-free future, I say let them.

I think you’re not up to date on what a racket the big equipment manufacturers have going. If you want to replace an alternator… simple part, should be a 1 for 1 replacement done in 30min, you can’t do it because it requires a John Deer tech to program the computer. This is done so they can mandate you use their service people and their parts, or your warranty is void on a million dollar piece of equipment.

And the service techs can be backed up during harvest, so you miss your harvest and your crop dies on the vine. It’s ridiculous