Sept 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has

asked defense industry groups how much their members make from

contracts that withhold replacement parts and tools, pushing

back on their opposition to a bill that would give the U.S.

military a "right to repair" its own equipment.

Warren asked the National Defense Industrial Association

(NDIA) and three other industry groups in a letter on Wednesday

how much they have spent lobbying against the provision included

in the Senate's 2025 proposed defense spending bill.

Top defense contractors, including Boeing ( BA ), Lockheed

Martin ( LMT ), Raytheon and General Dynamics ( GD ), are among

the groups' members.

The provision would require contractors to provide the

Department of Defense with "fair and reasonable access" to

parts, tools and instructions, in an attempt to avoid costly and

time consuming efforts to seek repairs from proprietary service

providers that Warren said decrease military readiness.

"Right-to-repair restrictions waste taxpayer dollars and

place service members at risk," Warren wrote, adding that

members of the military stationed across the world, including in

active combat, "should not have to rely on a company thousands

of miles away" to fix broken equipment.

The advent of 3D printers has made it possible for the

military to fabricate and fix many of its own parts in the

field. But in many cases the original equipment manufacturers

are entitled to remove field repaired parts to charge for the

replacement - or mandate that original parts be installed while

the equipment goes unused.

The NDIA, National Association of Manufacturers, Aerospace

Industries Association, Professional Services Council and others

wrote the U.S. Senate and House Armed Services Committees in

July, saying the "right to repair" provision is unnecessary and

would discourage their members from selling to the DOD.

Warren pushed back on that assertion in her letter to the

three groups, citing public examples of expenses and delays

resulting from contracts that required members of the military

to wait for authorized repair services, and in one case, ship

engines from Japan back to the U.S. rather than repair them on

site.

The Democratic senator from Massachusetts also wrote to the

DOD, asking for more examples and how they affected its missions

and budget, and asked whether the agency will seek to use a law

that allows for the transfer of intellectual property developed

using federal research funds.

Warren asked the groups and the agency to respond by Oct.

11.