Steven Cope, left, and Joe Shanda, both members of the Fleet Readiness Center East F-35 Rapid Response Team, perform maintenance on an F-35C aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. When a piece of military equipment needs repair, the military is sometimes forced to wait weeks or even months to get a contractor to come fix it. This reality has caused problems across the services — contributing to the F-35’s abysmal mission capable rates, forcing the Navy to fly contractors out to sea, and impacting the readiness of Army vehicles. (Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314)
In the search for savings and efficiency in federal spending, the Pentagon, with its nearly $1 trillion budget and $4.1 trillion in assets, is too big to overlook. While Republicans and Democrats often have different ideas about where to start, some proposals transcend the partisan divide through sheer common sense. Ensuring our military service members have the tools, supplies and knowledge to repair their own equipment is one such proposal.
As Congress prepares to mark up the National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon’s annual must-pass policy bill, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., along with Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., are making the case for legislative language requiring Pentagon contractors to provide the military with reasonable access to the materials and technical data necessary to repair weapons and equipment.
Under the status quo, contractors often prevent service members from repairing their own equipment through contract provisions that limit access to the necessary tools and data. It’s a bad deal for taxpayers. It can cost up to three times as much to pay Pentagon contractors for the same job a service member or civilian employee could perform in-house, and by monopolizing repairs, companies can charge whatever they want because the Pentagon has no alternative. Ensuring the military has reasonable access to repair tools and data could save billions of dollars by giving the military more options to pay for repairs, from training service members to opening up repair contracts to competitive bidding.
Even more importantly, securing the right to repair can protect service members and strengthen national security. When a piece of military equipment needs repair, the military is sometimes forced to wait weeks or even months to get a contractor to come fix it. This reality has caused problems across the services — contributing to the F-35’s abysmal mission capable rates, forcing the Navy to fly contractors out to sea, and impacting the readiness of Army vehicles. In one instance, Marines in South Korea had to delay training because troops weren’t allowed to repair a broken generator. In another, an Army officer in Afghanistan was unable to repair a CT scanner used to search for internal bleeding in injured troops.
Unsurprisingly, U.S. service members aren’t the only ones who’ve struggled to secure the right-to-repair. Following a lengthy dispute with iPhone users, in 2019, Apple decided to make iPhone parts and tools available to third-party repair technicians. Last year, McDonald’s secured the right-to-repair its ice cream machines, which had faced chronic breakdowns that employees were powerless to fix on their own. Meanwhile, service members are still waiting for the right to repair equipment that’s essential to their safety, and our security.
It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, the Army, at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s direction, is taking steps to address the problem in Army contracts. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George recently announced the Army Transformation Initiative, which aims to optimize capabilities and force structure while cutting waste. A key feature of this plan is securing Army service members the right-to-repair through contract modifications and the inclusion of right-to-repair provisions in new contracts. While some other military service leaders have committed to following suit, the only way to put this business to bed for good is through a legislative requirement that doesn’t leave contractors and services an out.
Of course, some Pentagon contractors aren’t fans of this idea. Last summer, a group of contractors wrote to the House and Senate Armed Services committees claiming that right-to-repair provisions would “discourage companies from selling their products to the Department (of Defense).” To be sure, service member right-to-repair would mean some companies lose out on their monopoly-priced sustainment contracts, but the notion that companies would forgo still-lucrative Pentagon contracts and profits over this reform is ridiculous.
For the rest of us who don’t have a financial stake in preventing the military from repairing its own equipment, the Servicemember Right-to-Repair Act is a no-brainer. Pressed on the question in a recent hearing, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said he “fully support[s] the right to repair legislation,” and is “hopeful that it will be done this year.”
The American public also agrees it’s time to legislate a fix. An April survey of 1,000 likely voters across the nation found that 74% of people support legislation to secure service member right-to-repair, including 53% who strongly support it. The support is also bipartisan, with 62% of Independents, 73% of Democrats, and 78% of Republicans surveyed supporting such legislation.
This broad support reflects just how common sense this legislation is. Repair delays and inflated costs undermine readiness, and when equipment breaks down in the field, national security is at stake. Service member safety and the success of our military’s missions demand a more agile approach. Ensuring service members have access to the tools and data they need to defend our nation is as common sense as it gets.
Gabe Murphy is a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog advocating for transparency and calling out wasteful spending.
