| Some of those issues have seemingly taken a back seat as Washington has grappled with the pandemic and its economic fallout, among other big-ticket agenda items. But Biden's push to expand consumers' right to repair marks one of the most direct ways in which he has affected big policy changes in the tech sector since entering office. And he notched those wins by leveraging one of his biggest assets in the push to rein in Big Tech: the aggressive new enforcers he has tapped for key agencies, including at the FTC. Nathan Proctor, who leads the U.S. Public Interest Research Group's right to repair campaign, said Biden's actions helped move the needle in the debate. "The White House's support for right to repair has moved the issue forward," he said. "We've seen companies including Apple and Microsoft begin to loosen their repair restrictions since the White House competition order." Sarah Miller, executive director of the anti-monopoly group American Economic Liberties Project, said she hopes the administration takes away from the industry's reaction to his right to repair actions "that the bully pulpit works" and "the bully pulpit can be very effective." But Biden's efforts to expand the right to repair also show the limitations of this approach. While Biden has urged the FTC to craft new rules to curtail repair restrictions and the agency has vowed tougher enforcement, they will still need to show they can follow through, including by overcoming what the agency's leaders have said repeatedly is a lack of adequate funding. And while major companies are making voluntary commitments to expand the right to repair their products, they are not necessarily bound to stick to them without legislative guardrails. Like with other tech policy debates, including privacy and antitrust legislation, Biden could help usher in longer lasting changes if he used his bully pulpit to urge Congress to take up the right to repair issue. But it remains to be seen if advancing those efforts will become more of a priority for the administration down the line. | 
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