Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez carries right-to-repair torch

Back in August 2024, we reported that the right-to-repair movement had made gains in Oregon, passing legal measures to ban “parts pairing” and slow the further slide into corporate planned obsolescence. Since then, the movement has really picked up some inertia, with wins at the state, federal, and international levels.

As a reminder, right-to-repair refers broadly to the rather American idea that consumers, end users, and owner/operators of all sorts should be able to modify, adjust, and repair their automobiles, computers, electronics, guitar amplifiers, etc., and they should not be subject to manufacturer efforts to specifically make such efforts difficult or impossible.

The trend toward planned obsolescence lines corporate pockets, demoralizes citizenry by robbing them of generational skills and knowledge, weakens national readiness, hollows out the middle class, and does so while lying about cost savings or security. This is accomplished by forcing repairs into authorized dealers, restricting availability of tools, repackaging certain component parts, and generally rerouting what should be basic maintenance into circular money-fleecing ops.

The movement to radically slow planned obsolescence and make repairs straightforward again has made serious strides in 2025.

At this point, all 50 U.S. states have introduced some form of this legislation. Six states have passed laws. Canada and Australia are making moves toward right-to-repair. Class-action suits brought by U.S. farmers against John Deere are ongoing, accusing the corporate tractor giant of deploying software that, in effect, moves repair work away from owner/operators or local shops and forces farmers to patronize John Deere authorized dealers.

On May 21, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) went before the House Armed Services Committee advocating the inclusion of the Servicemember Right-to-Repair legislation with the fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.

Gluesenkamp Perez’s act has as its main objective to “require contractors to provide the Department of Defense with parts, tools, and information needed for servicemembers to repair equipment, matching the access given to authorized repair providers.” Additional goals include improving repair autonomy, cost savings, fewer delays, promotion of accountability, and the enhancement of military readiness.

For citizens, right-to-repair makes sense as a property rights issue. We buy a product and expect that (a) it is designed and built to last and (b) in the event the product fails to function, we have the option to repair it ourselves or take it to a local, reasonable service center. Planned obsolescence, of course, has other designs — that mostly pertain to taking more of your money and giving you less product.

Similarly, but one step up the chain of abstraction, when American tax dollars are “sent to Washington” for allocation to the areas of critical government functions, we should not expect to pay hyper-premiums for the outsourcing of these functions and services. Nonetheless, this has been the case for a very long time, and lately, the rapine of the citizenry made possible through the corrupt convergence of politicians and government contractors is absurd. Criminal, even.

While Gluesenkamp Perez’s Servicemember Right-to-Repair Act didn’t make the cut for NDAA, the citizenry can be pleased that in April of this year, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth authored an official memo directing the Army to prioritize “right-to-repair” provisions in both new and existing defense contracts.

RELATED: The fight against costly planned obsolescence deals Big Tech another blow

imaginima/Getty Images

The Hegseth memo isn’t a fix-all, but it does send a message. Perhaps it is one that given the ongoing momentum, will be followed up with actual legislation soon. The memo opens up avenues for the Army to perform equipment repair and maintenance “in house,” saving serious money and time. Informally, there is talk already of deploying 3D printers on bases. In fact, within Special Operations, a segment of the DOD with immense funding and a greater degree of autonomy than the general service branches, has for some time been performing many of its own repairs and even building its own weapons and equipment when desirable.

Pushback from the usual suspects — Boeing, Lockheed, etc. — is to be expected in this arena. Nonetheless, the movement to radically slow planned obsolescence and make repairs straightforward again has made serious strides in 2025. Washington state just became the sixth state to enact similar laws ensuring Americans’ opportunity to repair, specifically, their electronics.

Speaking to the House Armed Services Committee about service members today, Gluesenkamp Perez said: “When they have to fly authorized contractors out to work on their equipment, it’s not just costly and demoralizing; candidly, to the technician[s], it also deprives them of the skill to go out into the workforce and build that asset nationally. This is a long- term cost, not just to our military readiness but to our embodied skill set in this nation.”