00:00the wonderfully wise and worthy workhorse Welsh go next. Thank you and I
00:06agree with Senator Hawley as well. You know one of the issues that keeps coming up in
00:10Vermont I talked to farmers and they want to repair their equipment and they
00:15can't and if there's anything a farmer can do is fix things and it's a way they
00:20save money and keep things going and they can't take the time it takes to
00:25have somebody else come in and fix it and they're not being allowed to do it.
00:30So a number of us think that there should be a right to repair. You buy the
00:35tractor you should be able to repair it and to some extent technology is
00:41becoming a device by which the manufacturers control the market and
00:46control prices but claiming its intellectual property but in fact you
00:52bought the tractor and if something goes wrong why can't you when you're
00:57somebody like a farmer knows how to do things fix it. So Mr. Alford I just want
01:02to ask you your view on, pardon me Mr. Meador, your view on right to repair.
01:09Yes I think it's incredibly important and as you alluded to the FTC has
01:13enforcement efforts in this exact area. I think it's critical that when a
01:17consumer buys a product they can use their own labor or that of anyone capable
01:21to repair and maintain that product. I actually have a John Deere tractor myself,
01:26not the same one farmers use but I know how expensive it is to have that just
01:30maintained. Yeah, I'll ask you Mr. Alford, I brought this is a car but not a tractor but
01:39I bring my car in to this place that it's a mom-and-pop type of shop and there's a
01:44lot of those in all of our communities and you and they're telling me that it
01:51really costs them a lot to get the latest software to be able to fix whatever's
01:55wrong with my car and it's leading folks to have to go to the dealership which
02:02charges more so it's bad for consumers and it's bad for these mom-and-pop shops.
02:08Tell me your thoughts on this right to repair. Yeah, Senator Hawley asked Mark
02:14Meter about a DOJ case and you're asking me about an FTC case but the answer to
02:19your question is yes, right to repair is a critical argument that is important in
02:24antitrust enforcement that is currently being litigated in the John Deere case at
02:29the FTC. There's significant case law on the right to repair as a legitimate
02:34antitrust argument and so I think yeah that's definitely viable and we're seeing
02:38more and more of that as you say there's sort of like these these you know
02:42hermetically sealed boxes of hardware that it's incredibly difficult to open
02:47if you open them you lose your warranty and if you don't go to the official
02:50service and things like that so there's there's lots of problems related to that
02:53can I if I can respond briefly to Senator Hawley's question on agriculture we
03:00absolutely agree that agriculture and antitrust are fundamentally
03:02important. The DOJ currently is pursuing a major and agricultural case in agrostats
03:09but some of the other issues that were mentioned by my fellow panelists with
03:14respect to buyer power and the consolidation of all of the sort of
03:18downstream farmers being forced to sell to a very very fewer and fewer numbers
03:23of you know buyers at the end is a huge antitrust issue and so we're
03:27definitely focused on that as well. Let me go back to Professor Miki. Is it
03:31professor? You're at Berkeley? I am at Berkeley but I'm a senior fellow but I'm
03:36honored for the recognition well even if it's not deserved. I went to Berkeley so it's
03:43good to have you. Thank you. Hawley get back here we got it we got a
03:48defense Stanford man. Can you just describe how a federal right to repair would
03:56promote a more sustainable and competitive agricultural economy? Absolutely when I
04:02was the principal deputy and then acting assistant attorney general in the antitrust
04:05division and it was our mantra in the front office don't mess with the farmers
04:10and we took the view that when big rapacious companies abused farmers that
04:17they needed to be prepared to meet the Justice Department on the other side and I
04:21think we saw that very clearly in the John Deere case which is why in 2023 we
04:27filed in the name of the United States on behalf of farmers suing John Deere in the
04:31class action case and so I think that a federal right to repair law would avoid
04:37the need for protracted expensive litigation where experts come in and and try to
04:45model harm to the fourth decimal point. There are just some things that come down to
04:49right and wrong and I think that whether you're talking about the ability to
04:54repair your tractor or the expensive ecosystem of aftermarket parts and
04:59services or really the I think most pernicious but least talked about issue in
05:06all of this is that the sheer volume of data farmers data that is being fed back to
05:12John Deere and you know sort of used in the ways that big tech monopolies use user
05:19data and is really quite concerning and so I I think this is a wonderful idea
05:25because we know what happens when companies pivot from being sort of an
05:31industrial monopolist to a sort of big data monopolist and then are charging
05:37expensive subscriptions and service fees in order for you to just interact with
05:42the product that you thought you bought. Thank you that's very helpful and I like
05:46your advice don't mess with the farmers. Thank you Mr. Chairman Mr. Bullard
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