Outdoor News – States react to SCOTUS Sackett ruling, VF Corp. to reorganize amid revenue decline

The current 6-3 supermajority enjoyed by the conservatives on the United States Supreme Court has seen the consistent rollback of both policies and precedents deemed overreaching by the federal government.

Their collective decision to unwind federal protections on individual liberties and privacies have been rightfully well covered, but that’s just part of their overarching trend (and a topic for another blog on another day). From an outdoor news perspective, though, it was last summer’s decision in Sackett vs. EPA that has been having the most immediate impact.

The Sackett case originally stemmed from a 2007 incident in northern Idaho, when the Sackett family purchased a plot of land adjacent to Priest Lake with the intention of building a house upon it. After their purchase, they obtained the pertinent building permits and began to go to work on the property, only for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to later call a halt to the process since their land contained wetlands that were subject to regulation under the Clean Water Act originally passed in 1972.

The Sacketts, feeling aggrieved by the process, filed suit, and it took until the fall of 2022 to reach the dockett of the US Supreme Court, who eventually ruled in their favor 5-4 last May. The result was a significant reduction in wetlands covered by the Clean Water Act on a federal level, leaving waterways across the country in need of new regulations and protections by the next level of the national bureaucracy – the states.

Jerd Smith of The Colorado Sun delved into what Colorado, in particular is attempting to accomplish in that wake. As it turns out, the dry and arid climate that encompasses much of the state makes it hard to even establish what is a stream, a bog, or a wetland for much of the year – the nature of the snow-snowmelt-runoff passage of time means that many ‘streams’ actually sit dry for a good portion of the year, yet remain every bit as vital to the natural water system for future seasons.

It’s a daunting task, asking the states to essentially start from scratch on a good number of water protection plans that had previously been in place. How’s that going to be funded? How much are they going to depend on in-house expertise versus outsourced, private expertise? How much new lobbying is – pun intended – going to flow into these decisions, as the future of development is now under the hammer of a completely different entity?

That remains to be seen as the 50 states spend their first winter since the decision attempting to rectify things. And while I’d like to think this transition of power would be a mere blip on the radar, I’m much more skeptical that it will feature a complete redesign and overhaul of what’s protected.

In other news, VF Corp. is yielding to one of their most aggressive shareholders, as activist investor Engaged Capital will add two directors to the board in the wake of another serious earnings decline last quarter. It’s the latest in a long, long line of disappointing news from outdoor retail behemoths, as each of REI and Cotopaxi announced layoffs after poor quarters while Columbia, Newell (the parent company of Marmot and Coleman), and Revelyst all followed suit.

It’s a fascinating look into the larger, big box wing of outdoor apparel faces in an ever-evolving world of inflation and a post-COVID return to ‘normal.’ Clearly, it seems these brands overestimated how sustainable their growth would be based on the mid-pandemic surge in sales, and that we get to see their financials (as public companies) means we can see first hand how much they’re having to scale back to maintain their accepted levels of profitability.

The nature of many who choose to roam the outdoors, though, often goes firmly in a divergent direction from Big Business and Big Corporation. Getting away from it all is kind of the point, right? As a result, there has long been both a drive for outdoor enthusiasts to create their own products, their own companies, and provide product to outdoor enthusiasts on a small-business scale. And while almost all of those level of companies remain privately held – meaning we can’t actively see their quarterly revenues and earnings – there’s long been a desire to support them first before any megacorp.

Hopefully, that wing of the outdoor industry continues to thrive while the publicly traded portion of it is forced to reconsider its priorities. Frankly, any mention of activist investors while writing about backpacking makes my skin crawl a bit, anyway. So, if you’re in the market for a good pack, a killer new pair of shoes, or a bivy sack for your upcoming trek, check out this well-complied Directory of Cottage Industry Backpacking Gear put together by the fine folks at SectionHiker.com. Those small businesses aren’t pounding down profit margins to make Engaged Capital even more money, y’know?