Analysis | The Civilian Climate Corps was dropped from the climate bill. Now what?

2022-09-08

Excerpt from this Washington Post story:

Soon after taking office, Biden signed an executive order that called for creating a Civilian Climate Corps. The federally funded initiative was aimed at hiring tens of thousands of young people to pursue climate-friendly projects such as restoring wetlands, installing solar panels and removing invasive species.

The program was designed to resemble the Civilian Conservation Corps, the New Deal-era initiative that put millions of young men to work planting trees, constructing trails and making improvements to the nation’s infrastructure.

Congressional Democrats provided up to $30 billion in funding for a Civilian Climate Corps in an early version of their sweeping climate and social spending package, formerly known as the Build Back Better Act. But the program was dropped from the final version of the climate package, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, during private negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.).

The Civilian Climate Corps proposal was hugely popular. Recent polling from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that 83 percent of Americans support reestablishing the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps.

“The Civilian Climate Corps was one of the most popular parts of the Build Back Better proposal,” Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who introduced legislation to create the corps with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), said in an interview Wednesday.

“It’s something obviously that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and I fought hard for,” he said. “So we’re going to find other avenues. We don’t have a specific legislative strategy yet. But we’re not going to give up on it.”

Markey also tacitly acknowledged that the program could help mobilize young people to vote for Democrats in November’s midterm elections.

Some Democrats are eyeing the annual appropriations bills as another avenue for creating the Civilian Climate Corps — albeit at a much lower funding level than $30 billion.

Some environmentalists are also taking solace in the fact that the Inflation Reduction Act includes two provisions that would accomplish similar goals as a Civilian Climate Corps.

The law provides $500 million for the Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management to pursue conservation and ecosystem restoration on public lands.

An additional $500 million is earmarked for the Park Service to hire new employees.

“There’s a lot in the IRA that looks like a Civilian Climate Corps in everything but name,” said Lena Moffitt, chief of staff at the climate advocacy group Evergreen Action.