The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and House Armed Services Committee (HASC) versions of their respective fiscal 2026 defense authorization bills contain “right to repair” provisions aimed at a reduction in system sustainment costs and improved system readiness.
“It is strong,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a SASC member and champion of “right to repair,” said of the SASC stance in an interview off the Senate floor on Wednesday. “And we have good allies over on the House side who are getting it into the House version.”
Asked about defense company opposition to “right to repair,” Warren said that “all the money is on the other [defense contractor] side” but that the contractors “never openly” voice their disapproval.
“And I don’t get it directly,” she said. “I think they figure they’ll spend their time and energy elsewhere, but they’re certainly out there pushing back.”
One of the key programs that has faced sustainment problems is the F-35 fighter by Lockheed Martin [LMT]. While forward-based F-35s have enjoyed high mission capable rates, according to DoD, other F-35s have lagged. Air Force F-35A pilots have cited their frustrations in having to contact Lockheed Martin in the United States for parts while on a Pacific exercise and their attempts to get parts from Marine Corps F-35Bs also participating in the exercise, to no avail.
“Right to repair” has bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. Warren and Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), a former Navy SEAL, have been behind the Senate effort. For the House endeavor, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), a HASC member and former intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve, have found an ally in HASC Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.).
In its fiscal 2026 defense bill, HASC adopted an en bloc amendment by Goodlander that would add a new section to Title 10–Section 4664. The latter section would stipulate that “an agency may not enter into a contract for the procurement of reparable goods or repair services in support of major weapon systems unless the contractor agrees in writing to provide the Department of Defense fair and reasonable access to all the repair materials, including parts, tools, and information, used by the manufacturer or provider or their authorized repair providers to diagnose, analyze, maintain, or repair the good or service.”
The Secretary of Defense or head of a procurement agency may waive the “fair and reasonable access” requirements through a “written determination that application of those requirements would have a negative impact on cost, schedule, or technical performance,” according to Goodlander’s amendment.
The language also provides that “if the United States Government did not previously fund the development of the intellectual property of the manufacturer or an authorized reseller or distributor, the government would pay a fair and reasonable licensing fee to obtain access.”
At a HASC hearing on Wednesday, Rogers requested more details from DoD acquisition chief Michael Duffey on how DoD is approaching “right to repair” to allow the military services greater ability to fix their own equipment and ensure contractors provide the necessary data to enable such work (Defense Daily, July 23).
Like the HASC bill, SASC’s would add a new Section 4664 to Title 10. “The Secretary of Defense…may not enter into a contract or agreement for the procurement, sustainment, or subsequent modifications of covered defense equipment unless the contract or agreement requires that the contractor deliver, or offer as a negotiated price option, Instructions for Continued Operational Readiness (‘ICOR’) to the Secretary upon delivery of the equipment,” according to the SASC language. “The contractor shall deliver the ICOR to the Department of Defense…and provide the Secretary with the rights to diagnose, maintain, and repair the covered defense equipment…The Secretary shall withhold payment to the contractor under the contract or agreement until the Secretary accepts the ICOR as complete.”
The SASC bill would prohibit contractor restrictions on the use of ICOR “by authorized maintenance providers of the Department, including requirements to use only contractor-supplied parts, unless such restrictions are explicitly approved by the Secretary as necessary for safety or operational reliability.”
The legislation would allow “alternative maintenance or repair actions” that could include reverse engineering, use of existing technical data, and DoD additive manufacturing, if a weapons program is unable to get the repair data needed to sustain operational readiness or in other cases, such as if a contractor “fails to deliver complete and current ICOR,” if the Secretary of Defense determines that an alternative would lead to significant cost savings, or if “an urgent operational or logistical circumstance, such as wartime conditions, active combat, or disrupted logistics, necessitates immediate repair or part production to maintain mission readiness.”
