EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: 

On April 30, Secretary of the Army Daniel P. Driscoll called for the Army to “[s]eek to include right to repair provisions in all existing contracts and also ensure these provisions are included in all new contracts.” 

This move came after years of advocacy around the topic, including an effort to add Right to Repair provisions to the FY24 National Defense Authorization Act led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. The Army’s April announcement on Right to Repair has lent momentum to the Congressional effort to pass the Servicemember Right-to-Repair Act and extend these requirements to all branches of the Armed Services. 

In their opposition letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee last year, an industry coalition claimed the Department of Defense “has not reported barriers to maintenance and repair that would necessitate such an over-reaching policy,” dated July 30, 2024. In other words, they argue that there is no problem to solve. 

As lawmakers consider these reforms, they have to consider two key questions: Does the military need reforms to protect and enshrine their right to fix equipment? And what does the American public think about such reforms?

To answer these questions, we conducted interviews with service veterans, reviewed reports of repair restrictions, and commissioned a poll conducted by Lake Research Partners and The Tarrance Group. 

Across all segments of public, Americans support military Right to Repair 

The survey U.S. PIRG commissioned was conducted by Lake Research Partners and the Tarrance Group in April of 1,000 likely 2026 general election voters nationwide. The results show extremely widespread support for Congress to pass a law ensuring the U.S. military can repair its own equipment. Voters overwhelmingly support Congress passing such a law, with 74% supporting it, including 53% who strongly support Congress passing such a law, while just 11% oppose it (15% are undecided). 

What is especially notable about this support is how uniform it is across different voter segments. Sixty-two percent of independents support Congressional action on military Right to Repair, as well as 73% of Democrats. Republicans had the highest level of support at 78%. (More details on our findings can be found in the tables below). 

Service members outline why reform is needed 

In the fall of 2019, military Right to Repair gained widespread prominence after two active service members wrote a New York Times column about their challenges fixing equipment, and how that undermined their operations. 

Despite manufacturers’ claims that there hasn’t been any reported barriers to repairs sufficient to justify reforms, our interviews and document reviews underscored why military personnel, including Secretary Discoll, have spoken up about the need for these changes. In this report, we are releasing new testimonials from servicemembers who reported to us how costly, disruptive and dangerous repair restrictions are for active duty military personnel. 

Government Agencies and Outside Watchdogs Warn of Spiraling Costs

The Department of Defense’s refusal to reform its procurement process to include Right to Repair provisions has resulted in spiralling costs for American taxpayers. The Government Accountability Office, an independent and nonpartisan government agency that examines how taxpayer dollars are spent, has detailed the tremendous cost overruns for weapons systems like the F-35 and called on the military to take over sustainment. Meanwhile, outside watchdogs, such as the Project on Government Oversight, warn that the Defense Department spends tens of billions of dollars annually to maintain military vehicles and equipment and instead should be “looking for opportunities to do more of this work in-house to potentially realize significant savings.” 

The bottom line: It’s time to grant the military its Right to Repair 

The American people are firmly in support of Congressional action to support the military’s ability to repair equipment. Our investigation has uncovered multiple examples of real-world repair restrictions, and their negative impact on our military operations. Our partners have calculated reforms could save tens of billions of dollars. 

The facts support reform, the people support reform. It’s time for Congress to enact it.

FINDINGS: 

Survey finds Americans support military Right to Repair by nearly a 7 to 1 margin

In order to determine whether likely voters support or oppose Congress passing Right to Repair requirements for military contracts, U.S. PIRG commissioned a nationally representative survey from Lake Research Partners and The Tarrance Group.

The survey was conducted over the phone, and geared toward getting a balanced bipartisan pool of respondents.  

Among the 1,000 participants, 88% reported that they were “almost certain” to vote in the next General Election, while another 12% indicated they would “probably” vote. When asked whether they were likely to vote for either a Democratic or Republican candidate, 46% indicated that they would vote for the Republican, 46% for the Democrat while the remainder said either they were undecided, or were voting third party. These voters were also distributed across various regions of the country. 

When asked “Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent or something else?” 42% responded Republican, 42% responded Democrat, 11% responded Independent, while 1% said they didn’t know. (We combine these last two responses in our charts below). 

These likely voters were then asked: 

“Some military equipment providers require the military to use only their authorized agents to make repairs, rather than allowing service members to do repairs themselves. Would you [support or oppose] Congress passing a law allowing the military to repair equipment they own, rather than relying on paying the manufacturer’s authorized repair technicians, or are you undecided?” 

When asked to clarify how strong their support is, the breakdown came out as follows: 

TABLE 1: INITIAL RESPONSES (%) 

Respondents were then given arguments for and against this proposal: 

“The law’s supporters say letting the military fix the equipment it owns would save us billions of dollars each year. The law’s opponents say experts should repair military equipment to protect our service members’ safety and our national security.

Having heard more, would you support or oppose Congress passing a law allowing the military to repair equipment they own, rather than relying on paying the manufacturer’s authorized repair technicians, or are you undecided?”

Support increased with the addition of these arguments. 

TABLE 2: RESPONSE AFTER SUPPORTING AND OPPOSING STATEMENTS (%)

It is notable how consistent support is across all the three voting segments — with somewhat higher support from Republicans, and somewhat less support among Independents, especially after supporting and opposing arguments are made. 

Additionally, the difference between strong support and strong opposition is remarkable. While 57% indicated strong support, only 5% said they strongly opposed, a more than 10 to 1 margin in favor of strong support. 

As lawmakers consider the Servicemember Right-to-Repair Act, they should be confident that they have the support of a large bipartisan portion of their voters. 

Why service members want a Right to Repair

The Department of Defense (DOD) has long recognized the importance of its ability to repair its own equipment. As a June 2023 report from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment put it:

“To effectively field and sustain systems and equipment, DOD must have flexibility in how it maintains its equipment throughout the product’s useful life. The Department strongly supports the concept of a ‘right to repair’ and believes it is important that the Department and its service members are able to repair their own equipment.”

However, DOD’s continuing inability to obtain the equipment, training, technical data and intellectual property (IP) rights it needs to make its own internal repairs or to solicit competitive third party repairs has resulted in spiraling sustainment costs and a lack of availability that negatively impacts military training and readiness and puts service members lives at risk.

Sustainment is a significant cost for DOD and, therefore, for U.S. taxpayers. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has noted that “[o]perating and support (O&S) costs historically account for approximately 70 percent of a weapon system’s total life-cycle cost” meaning they can easily total hundreds of billions of dollars. Nor is DoD’s reliance on service contractors a cost-effective proposition: a recent review of DOD service contracting budget and spending data by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) “found that contractor employees cost 2.94 times more than an average DoD civilian employee performing the same job.”

A 2023 GAO report on the F-35 illustrates these problems. According to the report, DoD will spend an estimated $1.7 trillion on F-35s in the coming decades and “[m]ost of the funds will go to operating, maintaining, and repairing the aircraft.” Instead of relying on the contractor to lead and manage sustainment, the GAO recommended that the military “take over management of F-35 sustainment by October 2027” and “make adjustments … to the contractor-managed elements” in order to “address its maintenance challenges and reduce costs.”

According to a February 2025 fact sheet from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), “[t]he DOD spends tens of billions of dollars annually to maintain military vehicles and equipment” even as “[c]ontractors protect this business by placing restrictions on diagnosis, repair, and maintenance, which prevents service members from performing the needed repairs across the product’s lifecycle.” To protect this repair revenue stream, POGO notes that “[c]ontractors may refuse to grant service members access to essential tools or data, or they may invalidate the equipment’s warranty if service members undertake their own repairs.”

Spiraling costs are not the only problem associated with the military’s inability to repair its own equipment; it also results in a lack of availability that hampers military readiness and training.

In the above 2023 report, GAO found that maintenance challenges resulted in a mission capable rate for the F-35 fleet of “about 55 percent in March 2023, far below program goals.” As F-22 squadron officials explained explained to the GAO for a Report to Congressional Committees on weapons system sustainment, “the lack of available aircraft creates a shortage of trained pilots” because “F-22 pilots need extensive training to fulfill their air-superiority role” and “there may not be enough aircraft to respond to contingency requirements.”

Recently, contractor Right to Repair restrictions and their impact on both cost and military readiness contributed to the Army’s decision to cancel the billion dollar M10 Booker program. The contract with Booker-builder General Dynamics required using it “to address a wide range of parts and maintenance issues that Army mechanics could have addressed on their own.” 

Discussing the cancellation, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll made an explicit comparison to Right to Repair restrictions in private industry while stating that “We have many instances where, for two dollars to twenty dollars, we can 3D-print a part…. but we have signed away the right to do that on our own accord, and that is a sinful activity for the leadership of the Army to do to harm our soldiers. And so that is the type of thing that we are no longer going to be willing to concede to the private industry.”

As Secretary Driscoll’s statement notes, for service members who have served their country, lack of availability and their inability to repair their own equipment is not just a theoretical concern. According to veterans interviewed by U.S. PIRG, it is an ongoing and pervasive problem that impacts their ability to fulfill their missions and puts their lives at risk.

Retired Master Sgt. Wesley Reid served for 20 years in the Army. He told U.S. PIRG how repair restrictions he faced directly put soldiers’ lives at risk.

While deployed in Afghanistan, his job was to keep the CT scanner in his hospital working. CT scans are a critical tool to detect internal bleeding or shrapnel a field medic may have missed in order to provide treatment within the “Golden Hour” from battlefield injury to reaching a field hospital that is key to survival.

During Reid’s deployment, he lost access to a microcontroller that gave him access to a critical diagnostic feature. The manufacturer said it would not send a new controller because the device was too old and told Reid to “buy a new device.” Meanwhile, wounded service members who needed a scan that could save their lives kept arriving at Reid’s medical facility. Reid did what he could to keep the equipment running but it was a lot harder without the microcontroller.

Master Sgt. Wesley Reid servicing his CT scanner while deployed in Afghanistan.Photo by Wesley Reid | Used by permission

Recently retired Master Sergeant Kerry Clark worked as an Observer-Coach/Trainer (OC/T) at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC) in Germany. As a Small Unmanned Aerial Systems Master Trainer, he saw firsthand how inefficient and costly manufacturer imposed repair restrictions are.

One drone he worked with, the RQ-11 Raven sUAS, often failed to initiate startup after a hard landing. The Raven is designed to crash land, so a hard landing is not uncommon. The only fix was to send the entire system back to the manufacturer for repair at a cost of approximately $26,000.

At one point, Clark’s team reached a logistics backlog and were given temporary repair approval. They quickly discovered that a small connector was becoming dislodged from the motherboard due to a lack of a retainer clip or any other retention method. They began reinserting the connector and adding a drop of hot glue to prevent reoccurrence, saving tens of thousands of dollars in shipping and repair costs.

Army Sergeant Dustin Zimmerman, a retired six year veteran, was based at the largest overseas U.S. military field hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, and also in Kabul, Afghanistan.

He repaired MRI machines and CTs that required special software service keys to access critical repair and diagnostic functions such as reading the error logs, adding a new doctor’s network designation to send patient scans, or run diagnostic self-tests. These service keys expired periodically, and could take several days or longer to restore access. During these delays, service members often couldn’t get the scans they needed. 

Making things more difficult, the manufacturers’ contracts forbid trained Army technicians from sharing any training materials or service documentation and required service members to attend their expensive trainings in order to be certified.

The bottom line: It’s time to grant the military its Right to Repair 

The American people are firmly in support of Congressional action to support the military’s ability to repair equipment. Our investigation has uncovered multiple examples of real-world repair restrictions, and their negative impact on our military operations. Our partners have calculated reforms could save tens of billions of dollars.

The facts support reform, the people support reform. It’s time for Congress to enact it.

If you are a service veteran or active personnel, you can sign this letter calling for action.