CDR Salamander - Quartermaster Bloomfield on Contract Maintenance

[HG S2 (Intel Bot)]

If you want to get an otherwise reserved and laconic farmer to get excited and talkative about a subject, ask them about the issue of “right to repair.”

…Wilson and others accuse John Deere of blocking farmers and everyday mechanics from fixing equipment without going through John Deere dealers. Although the company doesn’t prohibit users from fixing equipment themselves, the lawsuit claims it locks users out of repairs because of the limited access to software that only dealerships can access. The lawsuit says that makes most fixes nearly impossible.A lot like cars, the farming equipment is equipped with sensors. The John Deere tractors, for instance, run on firmware that is necessary for basic functions, according to the lawsuit. If something is wrong with the equipment, a code will appear on a display monitor inside the machine. The suit says interpreting the error codes on tractors, for instance, requires software that “Deere refuses to make available to farmers.”

Right-to-repair advocates say the digitization of agricultural equipment — with its various computers and sensors — has made self-repair almost impossible, forcing farmers to depend on the manufacturers. Wilson, for example, said he has to rely on his local John Deere dealership, which he said takes longer and charges more than an independent repair worker.

…a pending lawsuit the Federal Trade Commission filed Jan. 15 claims the company falls short of that promise. The complaint accuses it of unlawful business practices that have “inflated farmers’ repair costs and degraded farmers’ ability to obtain timely repairs.”

“I would have some farmers close to tears recalling the time they lost a whole harvest because they weren’t able to fix their own tractor and weren’t able to go to a local repair shop,” said former FTC Chair Lina Khan, who helped launch the suit.

OK, it is bad enough to have to wait as through time and experiencing a degrading quality of harvest to repair your tractor…but what if instead of Mother Nature, you have to deal with 50,000 screaming Chinamen?

Senator Tim Sheehy (R-MT) is trying to get ahead of this problem.

U.S. defense contractors have launched a lobbying and public relations blitz to defeat a provision in the Senate-passed NDAA that would set strict new rules for how the Pentagon accesses their intellectual property.

The issue is among the last unresolved matters facing House and Senate negotiators who aim to reconcile before December the House and Senate fiscal 2026 NDAAs.

The Senate’s so-called right-to-repair provision states that the Pentagon may not, with certain exceptions, enter into a contract unless the deal requires the company to provide the government with the data needed to operate and sustain the equipment.

That data means a lot to the contractors because it is worth many billions of dollars over time. To a servicemember it also means a lot: Being able to fix a weapon can mean the difference between life and death. And the cost of such repairs is a major driver of defense budget growth, experts have long said.

These are the same defense primes who are spending billions of dollars on stock buybacks, and already have a track record of contract maintenance that is not impressive.

He is not doing it alone. Proving once again an ability to reach across the aisle on issues that are truly bipartisan with others with whom he has substantial differences on other issues, Sheehy has found a partner with Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

In an April memo, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Army to include right-to-repair provisions in new contracts and modifications to existing deals “where intellectual property constraints limit the Army’s ability to conduct maintenance and access the appropriate maintenance tools, software, and technical data, while preserving the intellectual capital of American industry.”

The Senate language was written by two Armed Services Committee members, Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Republican Tim Sheehy of Montana.

Warren, in an email response to a query on Friday, said the support of Hegseth and other military leaders suggests her provision is the right answer for the armed forces.

“Military leaders, service members, the White House, and hundreds of small businesses all agree these bipartisan right to repair reforms are desperately needed,” Warren said via email on Friday. “The giant defense contractors fighting these reforms are more interested in innovating new ways to squeeze our military and taxpayers than strengthening our national security.”

This is gobsmackingly peacetime blinkered thinking. It is like none of them has any understanding of war…but only P&Ls…which is about correct. Yes, they have pet GOFO on their boards, but they are there mostly to exploit their contact lists, have little power over the board members representing BlackRock, Vanguard, etc. who hide behind them.

Defense industry control over data rights has sometimes kept servicemembers from having the information they need to repair a system on the front lines, Warren and others have said.

And companies have on occasion charged the government exorbitant prices to get parts or services, because without access to a system’s data, the work cannot be performed by the government nor put out for competition to other companies — so-called “vendor lock.”

On the other hand, the defense industry develops weapons and other military gear not just with government funds but also with the industry’s own money, and companies need to see a return on their investment.

“If Congress forces contractors to hand over their intellectual property, it sends a chilling message to innovators and investors: Your hard-earned breakthroughs aren’t safe,” Fanning wrote in his op-ed. “Why would the best and brightest risk investing in new defense technologies if their proprietary data can be handed off to competitors or third parties?”

This is the thing at the right time. We cannot sustain the fight if those in the fight cannot repair their gear.

The White House Office of Management and Budget, in a Sept. 9 statement of administration policy on the Senate NDAA, offered guarded support for the Senate provision. The OMB statement said the Trump administration supports the “intent” of the Warren-Sheehy provision and “appreciates the opportunity to continue working with the Senate to refine the language.”

The administration, it said, “is committed to partnering with Congress to guarantee that any right to repair requirements included in the FY 2026 NDAA balance the Department’s need for data with preserving the intellectual capital of our industry partners.”

In a July House Armed Services Committee hearing on defense purchasing policies, Chairman Mike D. Rogers, R-Ala., asked Pentagon acquisitions undersecretary Michael Duffey, “How are you going to balance this need that we have to be able to repair our own equipment and at the same time protect the privately funded intellectual capital that these companies put into these systems?”

As covered in my previous Substack about stock buybacks linked earlier, if the hedge funds don’t like being in the defense arena, then they should sell their stock and move along to kitchen appliances or hygiene products.

BZ to the Senators from Massachusetts and Montana. Get ‘em.

Final note, if you missed Senator Sheehy’s visit to the Midrats Podcast this April, give it a listen here.

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