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The idea of a<\/span> \u201cright to repair\u201d \u2014 a requirement that companies facilitate consumers\u2019 repairs, maintenance, and modification of products \u2014 is extremely popular, even winning broad, bipartisan support in Congress. That could not, however, save it from the military\u2013industrial complex.<\/p>\n Lobbyists succeeded in killing part of the National Defense Authorization Act that would have given service members the right to fix their equipment in the field without having to worry about military suppliers\u2019 intellectual property.<\/p>\n \u201cDefense contractors have a lot of influence on Capitol Hill.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The decision to kill the popular proposal was made public Sunday after a closed-door conference of top congressional officials, including defense committee chairs, along with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.<\/p>\n Those meetings were secret, but consumer advocates say they have a pretty good idea of what happened.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty clear that defense contractors opposed the right-to-repair provisions, and they pressed hard to have them stripped out of the final bill,\u201d said Isaac Bowers, the federal legislative director at U.S. PIRG. \u201cAll we can say is that defense contractors have a lot of influence on Capitol Hill.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The idea had drawn bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, which each passed their own versions of the proposal.<\/p>\n Under one version, co-sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mt., defense companies would have been required to supply the information needed for repairs \u2014 such as technical data, maintenance manuals, engineering drawings, and lists of replacement parts \u2014 as a condition of Pentagon contracts.<\/p>\n The idea was that no service member would ever be left waiting on a contractor to fly in from Norway to repair a simple part \u2014 which once happened<\/a> \u2014 or, in another real-life scenario<\/a>, told by the manufacturer to buy a new CT scanner in a combat zone because one malfunctioned.<\/p>\n Instead of worrying about voiding a warranty, military personnel in the field could use a 3D printer or elbow grease to fix a part.<\/p>\n \u201cThe military is a can-do operation,\u201d Bowers said. \u201cService members can and should be able to repair their own equipment, and this will save costs if they can do it upfront and on time and on their schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n