A Bit of Whit: The Land Beneath our Business
Welcome to A Bit of Whit—where AGA advisor and Walden Co-founder Whitney Scott shares her bold perspective at the intersection of leadership, strategy, and the outdoors. This is where boardroom insights meet backcountry inspiration, offering a fresh take on how vision, innovation, and real-world experience shape the future of our industry.
Hello friends, I know, It’s been months. No, I’ve not been hiding…just holding. Holding off on publishing this piece—not out of uncertainty, but because what started as insight on one thing, became a research project on federal initiatives. Every week brings a new proposal, rule change, or court opinion that builds on the last.
If I waited two more weeks, I’m confident something new would land (pun intended). But that’s precisely the point: the pattern is now consistent. The narrative is no longer speculative. The momentum behind this shift in federal land strategy is undeniable, and each new policy only seems to reinforce the direction—not contradict it.
This article is the result of months of work—not based on headlines, association talking points, influencer soundbites or pundit recaps. This is a dissection of the original documents themselves: federal legislation, budget proposals, permitting rules, and court opinions.
If your work touches the outdoors—whether it's a product on a shelf, heads in beds, boots on trails, or grants in motion—this is your operating environment. For our purposes, let’s leave politics as a wrapper and throw it in the trash. What we’re left with is the substance: the choices, policies, and structures that shape how land is accessed, managed, and monetized. Understanding those structures is no longer optional—it’s strategic.
If we can’t consume new information with the willingness to let it reshape our assumptions or refine our direction, we’ve missed the point—not just as decision-makers, but as practitioners of perspective. If we’re going to navigate this moment wisely, we must treat policy as terrain - charted, changing and worthy of inspection.
The Federal Government Is Rewriting the Map
In the last six months, we’ve seen a complex web of proposals and policies that, while different in tone and origin, are working in tandem to redefine land use and environmental structure in America. Here’s how they break down:
FY 2026 Budget Recommendations
The proposed budget introduces major funding reductions to a number of key environmental and public land programs. The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, faces a proposed 54 percent cut to its discretionary budget. This would significantly reduce its capacity to enforce environmental laws and oversee industrial emissions and pollution.
The National Park Service is slated for a 40 percent reduction in funding. In addition to cutbacks in staff and programming, the language of the budget encourages “low-traffic parks” to consider transitions to state or private control, or even closure in some cases.
The Fish & Wildlife Service would see $170 million in cuts to conservation grants. These funds typically support habitat restoration, species protection, and regional conservation efforts. The programs have been labeled “non-essential,” but for many communities, they are foundational.
The U.S. Forest Service is also among the agencies facing substantial impacts. The USFS is set to receive a 60% reduction in funding and staffing. Some of this comes from position eliminations, but a significant portion is tied to the proposed transfer of firefighting responsibilities from the USFS to the Department of the Interior. This shift has far-reaching implications: not only does it risk reducing the workforce responsible for proactive land management, but it could also disrupt the relationships with partners who conduct forest thinning and hazardous fuels reduction. These are the very activities that help mitigate wildfire risk for communities across the country.
At the Department of Energy, the budget calls for a $2.6 billion reduction in the Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy office. The justification? These programs are grouped under what’s called the “Green New Scam.” Historically, they’ve funded clean tech partnerships, solar pilot programs, and energy transition research.
On the global front, the proposal eliminates all U.S. contributions—$275 million—to the Global Environment Facility and the Climate Investment Funds. These international mechanisms are central to global adaptation, transition, and sustainability funding.
One agency not always top of mind in outdoor discourse, but deeply relevant, is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA.) Its mandate includes climate monitoring, weather forecasting, fisheries management, and coastal resilience—all of which are foundational to recreation, conservation, and economic planning in outdoor-adjacent regions.
The FY26 budget proposes a $1.311 billion reduction to NOAA's discretionary funding—a significant cut given the agency's role. What is clear is that NOAA’s ability to measure, model, and monitor climate trends is being constrained if not negated—especially at a time when land use decisions are moving faster than ever. As the saying goes: you can’t manage what you don’t measure. NOAA helps us see what’s changing, what’s at risk, and what future we’re charting.
Taken together, these proposals represent more than just fiscal policy——they reflect a redefinition of the federal role in environmental stewardship. And for those in the outdoor economy, that shift may influence everything from infrastructure to access, public trust to investment opportunity.
The America the Beautiful Act
The America the Beautiful Act offers a powerful countercurrent to the contraction seen across much of the federal budget—renewing and expanding one of the few long-term commitments to public lands infrastructure. It extends the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund through 2033 and raises the annual cap to $2 billion. That’s more money, for more years, with broader reach.
Importantly, the bill doesn’t newly expand eligibility—it maintains what the original Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) established. The Legacy Restoration Fund includes the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs. What this new act does is adjust how the pie is sliced.
Under GAOA, for instance, the U.S. Forest Service received only 15% of the total fund—despite managing roughly 25% of the deferred maintenance backlog across all federal lands. The America the Beautiful Act increases the USFS allocation to 20%. This change shows how true democracy supports advocacy, transparency and collaboration between policy makers and departments themselves.
The Act also introduces a two-year rolling list of priority projects to bring greater transparency to how funds are allocated. However, it also requires a 15% private match for project selection, effectively prioritizing those that can attract corporate or philanthropic dollars. Larger, high-traffic, or high-visibility projects may leap ahead, while smaller, rural, or ecologically vital but less trafficked areas risk being overlooked.
That said, the private match isn’t all downside. It creates new openings for outdoor brands, retailers, and hospitality operators to actively shape the public lands they depend on. Branded trailheads, fast-tracked infrastructure, collaborative stewardship—these are no longer fringe concepts. This could become a defining era of public-private co-creation. For companies that already operate near federal lands, this isn’t just philanthropy—it’s a chance to turn reinvestment into long-term positioning.
The funding source itself deserves exposure. The dollars aren’t newly raised or produced through taxes—they’re drawn from existing offshore oil and gas royalties. On the surface, it’s a reinvestment model: extractive revenue underwriting preservation. And that’s worth noting—tying what damages the land to what restores it is an approach that echoes Jane Goodall’s lifelong strategy of conservation through compromise. In a world of false binaries, this gray zone can produce real wins.
But those wins come with caveats. If extraction is increased to meet or grow this fund—as other strategic changes elsewhere may suggest—the net impact could be negative. In other words, we may end up funneling more capital to the outdoors while degrading the very ecosystems we’re trying to enhance. And because the bill structurally favors projects that can afford to match funds, equity becomes a real concern. Will underserved communities and fragile landscapes without commercial appeal be left behind? Will there be meaningful oversight to ensure that, even as we grow the business of the outdoors, we do not let capital ambition override ecological responsibility? Can we protect against the risk that well-funded development begins to define what gets preserved? Who decides what’s “worth” restoring, and what becomes expendable
Permitting and Leasing Reform
Energy development is getting a structural assist through a suite of reforms—most notably the Energy Permitting Reform Act and a new rule from the Bureau of Land Management. These measures don’t overtly expand the federal land base available for extraction, but they do something just as consequential: they speed up access, reduce uncertainty, and limit barriers to development.
Under the new framework, lease sales must occur on a regular basis regardless of current market demand. Developers face less legal exposure thanks to capped judicial review windows—150 days, no more—and federal agencies have just 60 days to respond to drilling permit applications. If they don’t, permits are considered “deemed approved,” removing the kind of procedural delay that once gave environmental advocates time to intervene. While royalties and bonding requirements inch slightly higher, there are no new constraints on how much land can ultimately be leased.
The result? A regulatory runway built for certainty and speed. For energy developers, the rules now promise a straighter path from lease to groundbreak. But for those in conservation or recreation, that same streamlined path can look like a bypass—one that may ignore cumulative impact or community input.
Layered onto this is the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s draft reconciliation proposal, which pushes the envelope even further. It introduces the possibility of forced land sales, particularly in the Mountain West, with language that sidesteps long-standing protections around public access, recreational value, and environmental review.
The Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR) issued a sharp response, warning that this provision threatens not only 5 million jobs and a $1.2 trillion economy, but also the soul of America’s public lands. “Once these treasured places are sold to private industry,” they wrote, “they are gone forever.”
Their critique highlights a deeper tension: these changes may stabilize development timelines—but they destabilize the stewardship model the outdoor industry depends on. The very land that fuels recreation, tourism, outfitting, and conservation could be converted into private holdings with little public oversight. And that’s not just a policy shift—it’s a business risk.
The Strategy Beneath the Surface
When viewed together, this is no longer patchwork. It is a strategic federal recalibration.
These measures form a new frame: one where public lands are evaluated not just for their ecological or cultural value—but for their economic throughput. The outdoors are wholeheartedly positioned as assets now, positioned to generate revenue, create jobs, reduce regulatory delays, and attract private capital. Whether or not one agrees with that model is beside the point. The shift is here.
Federal downsizing isn’t just about saving money—it redistributes responsibility and opportunity. If fully implemented, it also positions other stakeholders to understand and bear the long-term impacts of environmental decisions. National oversight shrinks while state, local, and private players are expected to pick up the slack. In this structure, your influence correlates directly with your ability to fund, manage, or monetize.
This is a pivotal moment for the outdoor industry. The federal government once acted as the umbrella—setting direction, funding maintenance, and driving tourism. It defined how we interacted with land and ecosystems. Now that structure is shifting.
On a broader swath of policy impacts, tourism dynamics are already impacted. International arrivals are down—air travel from Canada fell 14%, land travel 21%, and overall international visits dropped 12% in Q1 alone according to Statista. Domestic travelers remain engaged but wary: rising fuel prices, political rhetoric, and degraded park experiences have made confidence fragile. If you rely on public lands, brace for shifts in volume, access, and loyalty. On the flip side, private operators may see more demand as travelers seek predictability and quality. Even more, during uncertain times, Americans go outside—this is an advantage.
Let me be clear: this is not about red or blue. It’s not about who you voted for. It’s about what is—what’s being codified—and what that means for the business of the outdoors.
Climate and environmental stewardship are being structurally deprioritized. With fewer resources for enforcement and innovation, responsibility shifts to those who choose to step up—if they can afford to. We’re now operating under an extraction-to-access trade: we fund outdoor access and maintenance via leasing land for fossil fuel development. This structure gives us wins we can tout—but at the risk of long-term depletion, especially if clean energy investment stalls. It’s a contradiction we must acknowledge.
With stewardship down, the road to outdoor leadership is wide open. That’s both a risk and a runway. Public-private diplomacy, brand positioning, local reinvestment—these aren’t fluffy ideals. They’re strategic imperatives.
The land isn’t just being used differently—it’s being reconceived. And if outdoor brands and advocates don’t act with clarity and rigor, they risk becoming irrelevant in the very terrain that gives them their lifeblood.
So, consider your footprint—not just on trails, but on policy, investment, and intent. Are you standing firmly where you are? Taking advantage of the opportunities? Or missing the signals altogether? Are you ready to partner—or just observe? Can your values scale as fast as the policies around you are shifting? Or better yet, are you willing to consider where your values truly lie? And perhaps most importantly: what story will your business tell when the dust settles and the landscape is redrawn?
Until next time my friends, keep your head, heels and standards high!
