diff --git a/cmd/preferredimports/preferredimports.go b/cmd/preferredimports/preferredimports.go
index 5397ab6e17e..645c54d7cbd 100644
--- a/cmd/preferredimports/preferredimports.go
+++ b/cmd/preferredimports/preferredimports.go
@@ -200,10 +200,6 @@ func (c *collector) handlePath(path string, info os.FileInfo, err error) error {
 	if info.IsDir() {
 		// Ignore hidden directories (.git, .cache, etc)
 		if len(path) > 1 && path[0] == '.' ||
-			// Staging code is symlinked from vendor/k8s.io, and uses import
-			// paths as if it were inside of vendor/. It fails typechecking
-			// inside of staging/, but works when typechecked as part of vendor/.
-			path == "staging" ||
 			// OS-specific vendor code tends to be imported by OS-specific
 			// packages. We recursively typecheck imported vendored packages for
 			// each OS, but don't typecheck everything for every OS.
diff --git a/hack/update-import-aliases.sh b/hack/update-import-aliases.sh
index bfb9e3038c0..98635fff260 100755
--- a/hack/update-import-aliases.sh
+++ b/hack/update-import-aliases.sh
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ set -o pipefail
 KUBE_ROOT=$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")/..
 source "${KUBE_ROOT}/hack/lib/init.sh"
 
+kube::golang::setup_env
 kube::golang::verify_go_version
 
 cd "${KUBE_ROOT}"
diff --git a/hack/verify-import-aliases.sh b/hack/verify-import-aliases.sh
index d6228a88fa3..b7bded72d24 100755
--- a/hack/verify-import-aliases.sh
+++ b/hack/verify-import-aliases.sh
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ set -o pipefail
 KUBE_ROOT=$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")/..
 source "${KUBE_ROOT}/hack/lib/init.sh"
 
+kube::golang::setup_env
 kube::golang::verify_go_version
 
 cd "${KUBE_ROOT}"