Biden Administration Announces New Steps to Launch American Climate Corps

The Biden administration has announced new steps and unlocked funding to launch its new federal program, the American Climate Corps, that aims to employ thousands of young Americans in the conservation, clean energy and climate resilience sectors.

Seven federal agencies — the Departments of the Interior, Labor, Commerce, Agriculture and Energy; AmeriCorps; and the Environmental Protection Agency — are commiting to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to advance the climate corps, a press release from AmeriCorps said. The MOU details the goals, priorities, mission and next steps for implementation of the initiative.

“The American Climate Corps presents us with an opportunity to address the urgent climate crisis while training and preparing young people for good-paying union jobs in clean energy and climate resilience. From record heat to extreme flooding, we know we need to act now — and through the American Climate Corps, that’s exactly what we are doing,” said AmeriCorps CEO Michael D. Smith in the AmeriCorps press release.

Starting next month, senior officials from the administration will begin a series of sessions to hear from implementing partners — such as local, state and Tribal governments; educational institutions; and labor unions — as well as prospective applicants to the climate corps.

“Each listening session will last roughly 90 minutes and will provide participants with the opportunity to engage directly with Administration officials who are overseeing the initiative, as the Administration works to establish the first cohort of American Climate Corps members by next summer,” a press release from The White House said.

An executive committee was also established by the MOU to provide federal government leadership, in addition to a working group to implement and carry out the new program, AmeriCorps said.

“In launching this new initiative, President Biden fulfilled a key promise to mobilize a new, diverse generation of Americans – putting them to work conserving and restoring our lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, deploying clean energy, implementing energy efficient technologies, advancing environmental justice, and more,” the White House press release said.

President Biden first announced the start of the American Climate Corps back in September, and since then almost 50,000 people have expressed interest in joining. Approximately two-thirds of those interested are between the ages of 18 and 35, according to AmeriCorps.

“A historic program like this has never been done before in the lifetime of almost every single person that’s working on this program,” said Maggie Thomas, the president’s special assistant for climate, as reported by NBC News.

As specified in the MOU, agencies signing on to participate in the American Climate Corps agree that the corps will expand pathways to work in and be led by underserved and marginalized communities that have been overburdened by pollution and create economic opportunities in rural, suburban, urban and remote wilderness areas, among other guiding principles, the press release from AmeriCorps said.

The American Climate Corps will look to the states of Colorado, California, Michigan, Maine and Washington, which already have climate corps programs, as partners.

“We continue to think that Congress spending is still a good idea, that hasn’t changed, but we continue to use our creativity, to make sure that we really are using every tool available to us to tackle the climate crisis,” Thomas said, as NBC News reported. “We engage every agency and we really pull in this new diverse generation of young people to ensure that we can tackle the climate crisis in all the ways we know we need to.”