JUNEAU — Alaska lawmakers are considering legislation that would give independent repair shops greater access to materials needed to fix digital equipment.
Advocates say that the ”right-to-repair” law would divert electronics from the trash, and save time and money for Alaskans who may otherwise have to ship out products for repairs.
Opponents, including representatives from large technology companies, say that the legislation is too broad and would give independent technicians access to work on equipment they’re not trained or qualified to fix.
Two bills intended to address the issue — one in the Senate and one in the House — are working their way through their respective chambers.
The bills would require manufacturers of digital products to make available to independent service providers the parts, tools or software needed to repair a digital product, by amending the Alaska Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act.
That means, for example, Apple would need to offer local independent repair shops the tools or schematics needed to repair an iPhone with a dead battery.
“In a lot of ways, this is a deeply conservative bill in the sense that for most of the 20th century, you could fix the stuff you bought, and the parts would be available, because it was another revenue stream for the businesses,” said Anchorage Democratic Sen. Forrest Dunbar, the sponsor of the Senate bill.
The bills, as currently written, would apply to a range of products, from computers and dishwashers to machinery like tractors and snowmachines.
The bill before the Senate is particularly “ambitious,” applying to a wide range of technologies, Dunbar said. Only motor vehicles, such as cars and motorcycles, and medical equipment would be exempted. Dunbar said he’s also planning to exempt security devices at the bill’s next hearing.
The House version, sponsored by Fairbanks Democratic Rep. Maxine Dibert, carries those same exemptions. The House Community & Regional Affairs Committee has also added an exemption for “critical infrastructure,” defined as systems so vital to the state that their destruction could have detrimental effects on state security.
Both bills are still in committee. Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, a co-sponsor of the Senate bill, said she supports the measure, but it is not on Senate leadership’s priority list as the session enters its final month. Dunbar said he’s confident his bill would pass a floor vote, but he is uncertain if the bill will move from committee.
As of late 2025, 12 states have passed some form of a right-to-repair law, and every state has introduced legislation on the subject.
The group Alaska Environment is advocating for the bills, and arguing that the closer proximity and often cheaper costs offered by independent repair shops in Alaska will extend the life of electronics and cut down on electronic waste. A report by Alaska Environment Research & Policy Center center describes the state as an “authorized repair desert,” with most communities located hundreds of miles away from these licensed facilities.
The center says that the average American produces 47 pounds of electronic waste each year. Right-to-repair laws, it argues, would make consumers less likely to scrap products in need of repair.
Dunbar said the bill is necessary because some manufacturers create “deliberate obstacles” to repair devices.
Manufacturers, for example, sometimes use unique screw heads to close in batteries, or use specialty parts that are difficult to obtain, a 2021 Federal Trade Commission report found.
Companies can embed software into products that forces the customer to have any repairs done by the manufacturer or an authorized servicer, the FTC report found.
And as software technology develops and is integrated more and more into products, it leaves independent repair companies and customers with fewer options in repairing their goods, Dunbar argued.
Justin Castle, owner of an independent electronics shop in Eagle River, testified in support of the bill. He wrote in a recent opinion piece that a customer came to his shop looking to repair a control board for his truck-mounted plow, with which he made a living. The company that manufactures the control board told the customer that he should mail the board to them, and they could return it in three months, Castle wrote. That was in January, Castle wrote, and by the time the repair was back, the snow season would be gone, as would that customer’s opportunity for income.
Castle wrote that if the manufacturer had provided access to schematics, his shop would have been able to diagnose and repair the issue.
Lawmakers amended the bill to allow for dealerships to sell repair parts from manufacturers at a reasonable markup, based on testimony from business owners who said those sales were a crucial aspect of their operation. But some dealerships and authorized repair shops have still cited concerns that the right-to-repair law would cut into their profit margins.
Others who oppose the Alaska bill, and right-to-repair laws more broadly, argue that obstacles manufacturers place on repairs can serve a purpose.
TechNet, a network of technology CEOs representing companies including Apple, Meta and Amazon, opposed the bill in a March 16 letter to the Legislature, arguing that the bill’s language is too broad and that it would give individuals and independent repair shops access to schematics to fix devices that go “far beyond traditional consumer electronics.”
TechNet wrote that the bill would erode the current system where manufacturers work with authorized repair service providers, and that these agreements “ensure that technicians have the appropriate training, access to safe repair procedures, and the qualifications necessary to protect both the device and the consumer.”
They argue that the bill is misaligned with language of right-to-repair bills from other states.
New York, for example, one of the first states to pass right-to-repair legislation, in 2023 passed a law including over a dozen exemptions for the types of digital electronic equipment for which manufacturers need to provide schematics. That included exemptions for products like farm and construction equipment, video game consoles and power tools, none of which are included as exemptions in either of the Alaska bills.
Dunbar said that having as few exemptions as possible is necessary for a state as large and geographically isolated as Alaska.
“I hope that a prerequisite to moving this to this floor is not shooting the bill so full of holes with exemptions that it no longer becomes a meaningful piece of legislation,” Dunbar said.