The following article was originally printed in the October 2026 Issue of Slush. To get more articles and subscribe, click here.
Interview by Stan Leveille
You’re probably familiar with Protect Our Winters, or POW, one of winter sports’ most prominent organizations working to turn a love of the outdoors into political action on climate. Founded by Jeremy Jones in 2007, POW has spent nearly two decades bringing the outdoor community into conversations that extend well beyond snow totals,from lobbying lawmakers and protecting public lands to advocating for major federal climate legislation. That work is organized around three advocacy pillars: Defend what we love/Build what we need/Shift who decides.
Its politically active sibling, the POW Action Fund, may be less familiar. Launched in 2018, the Action Fund is a separate 501(c)(4) organization, which allows it to endorse candidates, lobby on legislation and work directly to turn outdoor enthusiasts into voters.
With the midterms approaching, that distinction felt particularly relevant. For this edition of Community Service, we spoke with Ben Gubits, POW’s VP of Advocacy & Campaigns, about the candidates, policies and stakes outdoor voters should consider when they head to the polls this November.
A lot of our readership is based in Utah, where Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante have been back in the news. What should readers understand about what’s happening there?
Elections have consequences for public lands. The people we elect have enormous influence over what happens to places like Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.
The latest effort to weaken protections began in Congress through the Congressional Review Act, or CRA. When Congress did not complete that process before the deadline, the Trump administration pursued administrative action instead. More broadly, the CRA has increasingly been used to overturn federal protections affecting public lands, offshore areas and oil and gas development.
This issue also extends far beyond Utah. I’m not a Utah resident, but I’ve visited Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante many times, including with my children. These are national monuments that belong to all Americans.
The immediate concern is that weakening their protections could open these landscapes to mineral extraction and irreversible damage. Voters should understand that decisions made in Washington have direct and lasting consequences for the public lands we all share.
Bringing it back to Utah, what should an outdoor voter there pay attention to heading into the midterms? Are there particular races, candidates or policies that matter?
Outdoor voters should look beyond the marquee congressional contests. Elections for the Utah House and Senate will influence decisions involving state lands, mineral extraction, data centers and other forms of development affecting outdoor communities.
At the federal level, Representative Celeste Maloy played a leading role in the effort to use the CRA to overturn protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. She introduced the House resolutions targeting both monuments.
That gives voters a clear record to consider: whether their representatives’ actions reflect what they want for Utah’s public lands. State, local and federal races will all shape the answer.
California could play an outsized role in determining control of the House. Are there California candidates POW views as particularly strong climate advocates?
California’s new congressional map created several opportunities to elect more environmental advocates. One is in the newly configured 3rd Congressional District, which includes communities around Tahoe, Truckee and South Lake Tahoe.
POW Action Fund has endorsed Representative Ami Bera in that district. For outdoor voters in the Tahoe region, it is a race with direct implications for climate and public-lands representation in Congress.
From the POW Action Fund side, are there Colorado races you see as especially important for outdoor voters?
Our primary focus in Colorado has been the 3rd Congressional District, where Dwayne Romero is challenging Representative Jeff Hurd. POW Action Fund has endorsed Romero.
The district encompasses much of Colorado’s Western Slope, including Telluride, Durango and the Roaring Fork Valley. Climate, water and public lands are central to its communities and economy. Romero and Hurd offer sharply different records and approaches on those issues, making the race especially consequential for outdoor voters.
One POW initiative that always spoke to me was Purple Mountains,the idea that a shared love of the outdoors can cross traditional political lines. Given how partisan everything has become, is that still central to POW’s message?
Absolutely. The premise is that our shared love of the outdoors can be stronger than the issues that divide us. As we sometimes say, our common ground is our common ground.
People across the political spectrum want clean air, clean water, a healthy planet and safe, beautiful places to recreate. They do not want every available landscape sacrificed to oil, gas or mineral extraction. Those should not be inherently partisan concerns.
Protect Our Winters is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3). Our work is grounded in the Outdoor State, a community of more than 180 million Americans who recreate outside and represent a wide range of political views.
We want climate, public health and public lands to be top of mind when members of that community vote. The EPA’s recent rollback of environmental regulations makes the connection especially clear: weakening pollution standards and greenhouse-gas reporting does not affect climate alone. It affects the air people breathe and the health of their families and communities.
POW is also working with members of Congress on legislation intended to restore and strengthen the EPA’s ability to protect public health and the environment. It is one way we are pairing a defense against current rollbacks with a positive vision for the future.
If you woke up the morning after Election Day and thought, “That was a good day for the outdoors,” what would have happened? What would a successful midterm look like from the POW Action Fund’s perspective?
From the POW Action Fund’s perspective, success would mean a change in control of at least one chamber of Congress.
The pace and scale of attacks on climate policy and environmental protections during the first two years of the Trump administration have been unprecedented. The current congressional majority has largely enabled that agenda, including through the budget reconciliation law that rolled back significant portions of the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean-energy investments.
Unified political control has allowed major policy changes to move with few meaningful checks. Climate programs, environmental safeguards and public lands have all been prominent targets.
Changing control of at least one chamber would restore a measure of accountability and create space to begin building a more durable, positive agenda for climate, public health and the outdoors. For us, that work is now. It’s mission-critical.
Learn more about POW ACTION FUND here.
Follow them on Instagram here.
And find a place to vote on Nov. 3rd here.