The military has almost earned the right to reform. Lawmakers just took it

American lawmakers have Deleted provisions in National Defense Authorization Act of 2026 would have guaranteed the right of military members to repair their own equipment.

the Final language The National Defense Authorization Act was shared by the House Armed Services Committee on Sunday, after weeks of delays pushed the annual funding bill to the end of the year. Among a host of other language changes made as part of reconciling different versions of legislation drafted by the Senate and House, two provisions focusing on the right to repair were deleted — Section 836 of the Senate bill and Section 863 of the House bill. Also missing from the House version of the bill was Section 1832, which reform advocates worried would implement a “data-as-a-service” relationship with defense contractors that would have forced the military to pay for subscription repair services.

like Reported by WIRED In late November, lobbying efforts by defense contractors appeared to have succeeded in convincing lawmakers who led the caucus process, including Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican. chair From the House Armed Services Committee, and Ranking Member Adam Smith of Washington, to withdraw the reform provisions, which had bipartisan support and were supported by the Trump administration, from the law.

The move is a blow to the broader Right to Repair movement, which calls for policies that make it easier for device users, owners or third parties to work on and repair devices without having to get approval from or pay for the manufacturer. But while guaranteeing service members’ repair rights was not the final cut, competing efforts to make the military rely on opt-in repair-as-a-service plans were not.

“For decades, the Pentagon has relied on a broken acquisition system that is routinely defended by career bureaucrats and corporate interests,” Senators Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Tim Sheehy, Republican of Montana, wrote in a joint statement shared with WIRED. They both support right-to-repair efforts and were behind the language used in the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act. “The military right to reform 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,” they say. “The only ones who oppose this common-sense reform are those who exploit a broken status quo at the expense of our warfighters and taxpayers.”