The Army embraces Right to Repair: Why that matters and what comes next

In a milestone for Right to Repair, on April 30, Secretary of the Army Daniel P. Driscoll called for the Army to seek to include Right to Repair in all procurement contracts. 

The order included a number of policy changes, with an intention to “eliminate wasteful spending,” “modernize inefficient defense contracts,” and otherwise streamline Army operations. Among those policy changes was this section regarding the Right to Repair: 

To accelerate modernization and acquisition efficiency, the Secretary of the Army shall … Identify and propose contract modifications for right to repair provisions where intellectual property constraints limit the Army’s ability to conduct maintenance and access the appropriate maintenance tools, software, and technical data – while preserving the intellectual capital of American industry. Seek to include right to repair provisions in all existing contracts and also ensure these provisions are included in all new contracts. [Emphasis added]

Military Right to Repair has been a topic for many years, including a prominent call for change from then-Captain Elle Ekman featured in the New York Times in 2019. The new Army policy follows 6 years of investigation and advocacy, and is an important step forward — but more needs to be done to ensure that our service members have what they need to fix the equipment they rely on.

How repair restrictions impact the military 

The military buys and maintains a lot of equipment of all types – from mundane office equipment to specialized war machines – for use in challenging and diverse environments. 

Captain Ekman, in her New York Times column, described not being able to repair maintenance units during a training exercise in Japan because of contractual restrictions, and having to ship engines across the world for repairs they should be able to perform on site. Not only do these hurdles cost time and money, our service members lose “the opportunity to practice the skills they might need one day on the battlefield, where contractor support is inordinately expensive, unreliable or nonexistent.”

Calling contractor support “inordinately expensive” is not hyperbole. The U.S. spends hundreds of billions of dollars purchasing equipment, and maintenance and repair contracts can be as much as seventy percent of programs’ expenditures. In one particularly offensive example, a Pentagon investigation into cost overruns on spare parts for a transport aircraft found a 7,943 percent markup on a lavatory soap dispenser.  

Beyond cost and missed opportunities for training, these restrictions put lives at risk. I interviewed retired Master Sgt. Wesley Reid, who was tasked with fixing and maintaining medical equipment while deployed in Afghanistan, but was denied access to what he needed from the manufacturer, forcing him to improvise workarounds to keep equipment running — equipment that was vital to saving the lives of injured soldiers.

Building support for change 

In 2021, then-President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order on competition. It included a requirement for the Department of Defense to issue a report on how it could implement Right to Repair for its equipment. 

The report that followed punted on this key question, deferring to a later guidance document concerning intellectual property rights the department never released. Unsatisfied, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) has brought up Right to Repair in a number of hearings with defense department officials, pushing them on the topic — including an exchange with Secretary Driscoll during his confirmation, who has now made Right to Repair official Army policy. 

Sen. Warren and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp-Pérez (Wash.) also introduced Right to Repair amendments to the FY25 National Defense Authorization Act and their Servicemember Right-to-Repair Act which would require the Defense Department to include repair rights in their purchase contracts. 

PIRG and our allies, including the Project on Government Oversight, have been working to build support for these reforms. We are working with a coalition of service veterans who support the Right to Repair, cataloging their experiences, and working to expand political support for Right to Repair (despite opposition from a broad range of manufacturers).

Finishing the mission on Military Right to Repair 

The Army, as the largest service branch, leading on Right to Repair is a huge step forward. More needs to be done to ensure that all branches of the U.S. military have what they need to fix equipment in a permanent policy. 

Overall, the April 30 policy order is very strong. Most impressively, the order calls for the Army to amend existing contracts. However, manufacturers have some room to push back. There is a reference to “appropriate” tools, software and other data. I’m sure the manufacturers feel it is quite appropriate to withhold what the Army needs. The order only calls for the Army to “seek” to include repair protections, which still allows manufacturers to attempt to restrict repair.

It would be best to make Right to Repair a basic rule, so it’s not a topic of debate in every round of procurement. There are huge financial incentives for manufacturers to control the repair of their products. Given my eight years of work on this campaign, I know manufacturers will push as hard as they can to maintain that control, and I worry about how that pressure might affect the staff who negotiate these contracts. 

We believe that everyone, everywhere deserves the right to repair the products that they own — and that means manufacturers should make the parts, tools or information required available. That means every branch, in every contract, which is why we must enact the Servicemember Right-to-Repair Act.