GREEN NEWS & VIEWS
Biden Administration Proposes New Civilian Climate Corps
EDITED BY MICHELLE ALONSO
In keeping with his campaign promise to make address- ing climate change and creating green jobs a priority, President Biden has proposed the creation of a “Civilian Climate Corps.” Through an Executive Order issued in January of this year, “Tack- ling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” the directive tasks the Secretary of the Interior, in collaboration with the Secretary of Agriculture and the heads of other relevant agencies, to submit a strategy to create a Civilian Climate Corps Initiative “within exist- ing appropriations.” The order further directs that such an initia- tive should “aim to conserve and restore public lands and waters, bolster community resilience, increase reforestation, increase car- bon sequestration in the agricultural sector, protect biodiversity, improve access to recreation, and address the changing climate.” In March 2021, the Biden Administration included a recommenda - tion for a $10 billion investment in the Civilian Climate Corps Ini - tiative as part of the White House’s American Jobs Plan proposal. Although some stakeholders have likened the proposed Civilian Climate Corps to past federal employment and service corps pro- grams, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), it is not yet clear how and in what form the Biden Administration plans to im - plement this initiative. Operating from 1933 to 1943, the CCC was a federal employment and job training program created in the wake of the Great Depression. It put to work 3 million unemployed young men—and only men—on projects aimed at the “conservation and development of the natural resources of the United States.” They built bridges, roads, dams and other infrastructure, some of which is still used and maintained today by smaller conservation corps crews. CCC enrollees were recruited, hired, and trained by the fed- eral government; worked under federal supervision; lived in govern- ment-run camps; and received stipends paid with federal funding. Currently, there are two primary federal corps programs related to conserving and restoring public lands and waters—the Youth Conser- vation Corps (YCC) and the Public Lands Corps (PLC). The YCC engag - es young people (aged 15-18) for 8-10 weeks over the summer to work on conservation-related projects on federal lands and waters under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). By contrast, the PLC is a job train - ing and employment program for young adults (aged 16-30 or up to 35 for military veterans) to engage in projects administered by selected agencies within DOI, USDA, and the Department of Commerce (DOC). The federal government also provides support and funding to or- ganizations that sponsor individuals to work on conservation ef - forts in other ways. For example, sponsoring organizations may re - ceive funding through AmeriCorps grant programs to support their work recruiting and engaging corpsmembers—the term used for participants in these various programs—for conservation projects. The Biden Administration’s proposal for a Civilian Climate Corps could mirror the Depression-era CCC approach, or it could resemble a contemporary model for federal corps programs. Many of today’s fed - eral corps programs are comparatively smaller in scale than the orig- inal CCC and vary in design, location, and scope of work. In general, these programs offer corpsmembers a variety of benefits in exchange for their service. These benefits can include a wage stipend, hous - ing, classroom training, experiential and environmental education, professional support services, and post- service education awards.
continued on page 26
24—PATHWAYS—Summer 21
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker