The final language of the NDAA was shared by the House Armed Services Committee on Sunday, pushing the annual funding bill to the end of the year after weeks of delays. Among several other linguistic changes made as part of harmonizing the different versions of the legislation drafted by the Senate and House of Representatives, two provisions focused on the right to repair – Section 836 of the Senate bill and Section 863 of the House bill – have both been removed. Also missing is Section 1832 of the House version of the bill, which repair advocates worried would have imposed a “data-as-a-service” relationship with defense contractors, forcing the military to pay for subscription repair services.
As reported by WIRED in late November, it appears that the defense contractor’s lobbying efforts have worked to persuade lawmakers leading the conference process, including Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, and Ranking Member Adam Smith of Washington, to remove the reparations provisions, which had bipartisan support and the Trump administration supported the act.
The move is a blow to the broader Right to Repair movement, which advocates policies that make it easier for device users, owners or third parties to work on and repair devices without needing to obtain manufacturer approval or pay. But ensuring repair rights for service members did not make the final cut, nor did competing efforts to make the military as dependent on repair subscription plans as the service.
“For decades, the Pentagon has relied on a broken acquisition system that is routinely defended by career bureaucrats and corporate interests,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Republican Tim Sheehy of Montana wrote in a joint statement shared with WIRED. Both support Right to Repair efforts and were behind the language in the Senate version of the NDAA. He says, “The military mandate to repair reforms is supported by the Trump White House, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and our brave service members. The only people against this common sense reform are those who are taking advantage of the broken status quo at the expense of our war fighters and taxpayers.”
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