Core Values Drive Creation of Climate Corps

It was the sight of firefighters wrapping the base of the world’s largest tree in a fire-resistant blanket that prompted a check of the status of the proposed federal Civilian Climate Corps. This type of activity would almost certainly fall within the job description of the program, which includes conserving and restoring public lands, forests and waters, bolstering resilience, protecting biodiversity, and addressing the changing climate generally.

Out west, a historic drought tied to climate change is making wildfires harder to fight. Scientists say climate change has made the west much warmer and drier over the past 30 years, and that will continue to generate more extreme weather and destructive wildfires.

The tree referenced here is the “General Sherman,” a sequoia located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in California. It’s said to be the world’s largest tree by volume at 52,508 cubic feet. It stands 275 feet high and weighs over 4.1 million pounds. It’s been around for more than 2,200 years, but is in serious danger of being destroyed by wildfires that are savaging the area.

Civilian Climate Corps Background

To assist in dealing with these problems, President Joe Biden issued a sweeping executive order on January 27 aimed at “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.” Section 215 of the document describes the framework for a Civilian Climate Corps tasked to address a wide range of climate-related issues.

While Executive Order 14008 specified that the initial work relating to the Climate Corps be conducted “within existing appropriations,” it was widely assumed that additional funding would be needed. Indeed, a few weeks later, the Administration included a recommendation for a $10 billion investment in the initiative as part of the American Jobs Plan. Since then, multiple legislative proposals have emerged from Congress that would fund the Climate Corps at wildly varying levels (see Congressional Research Service Brief).

At this point, funding for this program is a major wildcard. It is included in the massive $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill that is currently being debated on Capitol Hill. The lowest amount envisioned is the Administration’s initial $10 billion request and ranges all the way up to an estimated $132 billion to fully fund the plan in the Jobs and Justice Act sponsored by Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Civilian Corps Concept Rooted in History

The idea of a civilian resource conservation program created by executive order is hardly new. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) with an executive order on April 5, 1933, as part of his New Deal. While there are numerous parallels to Biden’s proposed Climate Corps, a key difference is program impetus. Whereas the CCC was a jobs program that had the ancillary value of producing environmental benefits, the Civilian Climate Corps is an environmental program that has the side-benefit of producing jobs.

The CCC is considered by most historians as a very successful initiative. Its workforce planted more than three billion trees (over half of the reforestation conducted in our nation’s history) and constructed trails and shelters in more than 800 parks nationwide (see History Channel “CCC and the New Deal”). At its peak, the CCC employed over 300,000 Americans earning around $30 per month.

A Whole New Dynamic

The mission and activities of a 21^st Century Civilian Climate Corps, while still being defined, are far more complex than FDR’s 1933 version. While work in national forests (e.g. protecting the sequoias from wildfires) and reforestation efforts would certainly resemble that done nine decades ago by the CCC, the notion of climate protection takes on a far broader scope. A short list of examples might include plugging orphaned oil and gas wells to curb methane emissions, restoration of wetlands and watersheds to protect flood plain communities, and increasing the acreage of farmland managed with climate-friendly agriculture practices. On the urban side, weatherization programs to assist low income residents in reducing energy consumption, installation of solar panels and green roofs, and, as Hurricane Ida just graphically illustrated, addressing the infrastructure needs of cities to withstand severe weather events.

While these examples constitute the proverbial “low-hanging fruit” of climate activities, mobilizing a workforce to perform the work is obviously far more complex than handing out rakes and hammers. The Climate Corps will require some form of human resource infrastructure to on-board and deploy workers and a training curriculum to ensure quality. At ground level, issues such as housing and boarding, workplace safety, and supervision will have to be addressed. At all tiers, professional talent will be required from fields such as engineering, architecture, and agriculture.

Fortunately, models do exist, such as AmeriCorps, the Corps Networks, state programs and others that can potentially be involved to help expedite the implementation of Climate Corps and diminish the “reinventing the wheel” factor.

Politics

It would not be modern day Washington if there was broad bipartisan agreement on a major programmatic proposal. While the Civilian Climate Corps is not a huge lightning rod for controversy at this point, it’s not being warmly embraced by the minority Republicans either. “We don’t need another FDR program,” Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR), the top Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee said. Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR) is also skeptical, "Why would we think people are going to suddenly jump at doing really, really hard, dirty, dangerous work because we offer them $15 an hour? That's not going to happen." 

Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) counters that the money is not the point. "This bold investment is a necessary response to the climate crisis and prioritizes the maintenance and upkeep of public lands…[they] are not doing it for the compensation. They know it's important to connect to nature and do important work for their state and the nation."

It also remains to be seen how vigorously labor unions may view the Climate Corps as an encroachment into their ranks. That was a snag that had to be worked around in FDR’s CCC.

Ensuring Social Equity

In its day, the CCC was criticized for a lack of diversity in its ranks. Camps were segregated and minorities had virtually no representation in supervisory positions. This time, both the Biden plan and Markey-Ocasio Cortez legislation explicitly attempt to get in front of the environmental justice issue. The White House executive order on climate change references “environmental justice” 24 times and the Jobs and Justice Act specifies that “environmental justice communities receive benefits of at least 50% of [Climate Corps] and Partner Corps projects, and 50% of corps members will be recruited from these same communities.”

The Path Forward

While the Civilian Climate Corps is clearly not going to be part of the strategy to deal with the 2021 wildfire and hurricane seasons, it's very much in the infrastructure and budget reconciliation conversation. Thus it's likely to be included in anything that emerges in those legislative vehicles. The greater threat would be the collapse of the entire infrastructure and budget reconciliation legislative process.

Assuming the Climate Corps survives in whatever bill(s) emerge, it faces major, but surmountable, bureaucratic and logistic challenges. To some extent, those challenges are tied to the ability to prioritize projects that are doable and suitable. As stated, this is not as simple as handing out rakes and hammers.

Yet it’s worth remembering that a big part of why the Climate Corps' ancestral model, FDR’s CCC, is fondly remembered, is that it was a vast government program that actually got meaningful things done on multiple fronts during times of great difficulty. And that is a worthy aspiration.