Dems push ‘right to repair’ mandate after proposal was stripped from NDAA

The bill — introduced on Dec. 12 by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash. — would require that defense contractors provide military personnel with the ability to service their hardware outside of the restrictions that often limit or block non-provider repairs. 

Although DOD spends billions of dollars annually on contracts for services and products, many of these private firms include provisions in their agreements that limit the Pentagon’s ability to take the lead in repairing purchased equipment. This often includes restrictions on the sharing of relevant intellectual property or technical data needed for servicemembers to make necessary fixes.

In a one-pager of the proposal, the lawmakers said their bill gives the Defense Department “the tools to access the materials needed to maintain the military’s own equipment and directs DOD to use those tools to reduce sustainment costs, improve military readiness and build servicemember skills needed in future possible austere environments.”

This includes requiring that defense contractors provide DOD with “fair and reasonable” access to the parts, tools and information needed to make repairs, so that servicemembers do not have to wait for representatives from the companies to perform fixes. 

“Pentagon contractors are taking advantage of our military, forcing them to pay thousands and wait weeks for basic equipment repairs,” Warren said in a statement. “Without the right to repair their own equipment, our servicemembers in the field are at risk.”

Although the Senate is poised to vote later this week on the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, a Warren spokesperson told Nextgov/FCW that the right to repair legislation is a separate effort from the sweeping defense policy package. 

An early version of the Senate NDAA text included an amendment sponsored by Warren that outlined requirements for contractors to follow when it comes to providing “reasonable access to repair materials.” Defense contractors voiced their opposition to the provision, which was not included in the version that passed the House last week.

The lawmakers’ bill includes this excluded proposal and also seeks to expand related oversight requirements. 

The tenets of Warren’s NDAA amendment — including the “fair and reasonable” access provision and its defined scope, as well as giving DOD additional flexibility when it comes to obtaining and using repair data — make up the core of the new legislation.

The bill would mandate that DOD “track and publicly report instances” when the military has to have contractors make costly repairs due to restrictions, and would also require “that each major weapons program’s acquisition strategy includes three cost-saving proposals to cut sustainment costs without reducing performance requirements.”

The legislation’s introduction comes as the incoming Trump administration has placed a strong emphasis on trimming federal spending, particularly when it comes to identifying and remediating unnecessary costs. 

President-elect Donald Trump has already announced the formation of a new advisory body — dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency and led by billionaire Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy — that will recommend federal cost saving steps.