Representatives from over 30 dealers and members of the North American Equipment Dealers Association ascended on Capitol Hill this week for NAEDA’s Legislative Fly-In. The group met with around 25 legislators, to discuss the need for the Farm Bill to be updated, tariffs, the death tax, section 179 taxes section 199 A taxes and right to repair.

The coalition met with about 25 legislators to deliver a unified message on the key priorities for the association, who it represents and the importance these issues have on rural communities and the ag industry as a whole.

Managing Editor Christine Book joined the group in Washington D.C. and spoke with Kim Rominger, president of NAEDA, who says this year they focused on meeting with key committee members, including Agriculture, Commerce and Finance.

Here’s Rominger:

"All of those committee members were addressed and the key priorities and how the tariffs could affect our industry. Right now we're fairly well exempt on some things on the tariffs at this point because USMC is pretty much held right now for the time being. And so those tariffs there are set in legislation. So we're in good shape right now."

"Now the bad part there is European tariffs are going to come in, so any of our dealers that are importing European products into the US may be affected. They won't be affected in Canada because Canada and the Europeans aren't in a tariff battle, let's say, at this point in time. So those are the key issues right now is what's going on in our industry. I would say, again, I mentioned taxes before, those are critical for the future and ongoing for our industry and for our dealers and for the farmers. We're also representing the farmers here in a way, because the Farm Bill is critical to growing the dealer's business and they're customers, we have to represent them in a certain fashion as well."

Right to Repair was a big topic of discussion as well. The group was on the HIll to advocate against a federal Right to Repair bill and outlined dealers' stance on the issue, Rominger says

"In other words, parts that cost for dealers to a customer will not benefit the customer in the long run. There will be fewer parts on hand if dealers can't sell at a profit. It's just standard marketplace and financial business. If you're going to have a product and sell it, you need to make a profit on it. So they won't inventory those products if they're not going to be able to make a profit on it."

"And a lot of the misinformation on the Right to Repair side is the customers are wanting to program out some of the safety devices, some of the EPA mandated emissions devices so that the performance of the unit can go up and they can manipulate that a little bit. And we are in favor of customers repairing their own products. And the majority of major manufacturers through the MOU with the Farm Bureaus have that ability now. And there's programs by every manufacturer to allow a customer to do that."

Finally, the Farm Bill was also a key topic. Rominger says since the Farm Bill hasn’t been updated in a few years, the numbers used in the current bill just can’t be forwarded into the current 2025 or 2026 year, stressing that those numbers need to be updated for the current bill so inflation and farmers’ current costs are accounted for.

"We're advocating for a completely updated farm bill for the current time. Not one that just has been passed in the past and we are bringing up the future. That's not going to work. Not for our members and not for the farmers. So that's the major position we have on the farm bill, but we have to have a new farm bill."

According to Rominger, Congressman Glenn Thompson, chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, is confident we’ll have a new Farm Bill by summer.

"But with politics, you never know. And the sooner the better. The sooner we get it, market confidence and everything else will depend on that. And the market will be driven by the sooner it comes out, the more good news that'll help commodities. That's going to help everything once we get the farm bill completed."

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