Maine Right to Repair Working Group Debates Suggestions it should Provide to the Legislature
The Maine Right to Repair Working Group met this week to review a draft report with legislative suggestions that the Maine attorney general would send to elected officials in the state legislature. The attorney general is required by law to submit the report to the legislature by February 28, 2025. At issue in the report is the right to repair law which went into effect in January 2024, but which has proven challenging for the state to implement. Various stakeholders disagree on how to interpret the law's vague language.
The working group was created to provide guidance to the attorney general's office on the report. Specifically, Maine legislators tasked them with offering suggestions for "legislation to establish an entity with rule-making and enforcement authority to adopt standards governing access to motor vehicle telematics systems and to otherwise implement and enforce the requirements” of the right to repair law.
Prior to the most recent meeting, the working group has met on six separate occasions since August at which working group members and the public shared ideas. At the most recent meeting, working group members discussed the attorney general's first draft of the report, which was based on the working group's input.
As currently written, the law requires the attorney general to establish an independent entity that shall "establish and administer access to vehicle-generated data" and "manage cyber-secure access to motor vehicle-generated data." The attorney generals draft report states that there was unanimous agreement within the working group that elected officials should amend the law to make clear that the independent entity will not "maintain, provide access to, or otherwise exercise control over vehicle data." Instead, they advised that vehicle manufacturers should maintain control over vehicle data and assume responsibility for ensuring access to that data.
The law as currently written also empowers the entity with rule making and enforcement authority. The draft report states that the working group unanimously encourages lawmakers to amend the law to make the entity's role purely advisory.
During this week's meeting, several working group members suggested that the independent entity's membership should include spots reserved for those involved with the manufacture and repair of heavy-duty vehicles. The current law applies the same to light-duty vehicles as it applies to heavy-duty.
Other grammatical and potentially substantive edits were made during this week's meeting. The attorney general's office will produce a new draft and schedule several more opportunities for working group members and the public to comment on the updated draft before producing a final report.