Defense Contractors Win as Congress Strips Military Right to Repair From Spending Bill

Let’s be absolutely clear about what just happened here: Congress had a chance to save taxpayers billions of dollars and give our military the ability to fix its own equipment, and instead chose to protect defense contractor profit margins. This is swamp behavior at its finest.

The final National Defense Authorization Act conspicuously omits a bipartisan provision that would have guaranteed the Pentagon the right to repair its own military equipment. Both the House and Senate had previously passed versions of this reform. The White House publicly supported it. The measure had backing from the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and actual service members who deal with broken equipment in the field.

So who opposed it? Defense contractors and their lobbyists, naturally.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Tim Sheehy, who authored the provision, did not mince words after discovering their reform had been gutted. “For decades, the Pentagon has relied on a broken acquisition system that is routinely defended by career bureaucrats and corporate interests,” they stated. “The only ones against this common-sense reform are those taking advantage of a broken status quo at the expense of our warfighters and taxpayers.”

Here are the facts: The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly identified the Pentagon’s lack of access to technical data as one of the primary drivers of astronomical sustainment costs. GAO estimates that broader repair rights could save the Department of Defense billions of dollars over the life cycles of major weapons systems. Not millions. Billions.

The current system works like this: Contractors build equipment for the military, then retain proprietary rights over repair information. When something breaks, the Pentagon cannot fix it in-house. Instead, they must fly out manufacturer technicians at exorbitant cost or enter into long-term vendor support arrangements that GAO reviews consistently show are far more expensive than in-house maintenance.

GAO assessments of aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles have documented case after case where contractor control over repair information has resulted in increased downtime, reduced operational flexibility, and inflated costs for everything from basic software fixes to depot-level repairs. The solution is straightforward: require contractors to provide the technical data needed for repairs as part of their contracts.

This reform would not have been radical. It simply would have mandated that contractors give the Pentagon the information necessary to maintain equipment the military already owns. The reform passed both chambers. The Trump administration supported it. Military leadership wanted it.

Then came the lobbyists.

Sources familiar with the NDAA negotiations report that behind closed doors, defense industry lobbyists convinced leaders on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to strip the provision from the final bill. One source characterized it bluntly: “This is a textbook case of the swamp prevailing at the expense of our warfighters and government efficiency.”

Another asked pointedly whether War Secretary Pete Hegseth realizes that Boeing just undermined military readiness to protect its service contracts.

This represents everything wrong with Washington. When career bureaucrats and corporate interests align against common-sense reform, taxpayers lose, warfighters lose, and the only winners are companies exploiting a broken system they helped create.

The Pentagon spends roughly $300 billion annually on operations and sustainment. Even modest improvements in repair efficiency could yield savings in the tens of billions. But those savings would come directly out of contractor revenue streams, which explains the lobbying blitz that killed this provision.

Congress had an opportunity to choose between defense contractors and national defense. The final NDAA reveals which side won. The question now is whether anyone will be held accountable for this decision, or whether the swamp will simply move on to the next opportunity to prioritize corporate profits over military readiness.