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September 28, 2021
Creating a modern federal version of the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps has been a point of interest for policymakers for years, and featured prominently in President Joe Biden’s January Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.
The Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands held a hearing in July 2021 to discuss the possibility of a new federally-backed conservation corps, inviting speakers from local corps programs around the country to share their perspectives on the proposal.
In September, Committee legislators included a resolution approving $3 billion in funding for a Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) program and $500 million for a Tribal Civilian Climate Corps. These funds constitute a major component of the CCC spending put forward during the reconciliation process.
The revamped CCC would follow the conservation corps model, providing skills training to young adults as well as opportunities to work on public-interest conservation, energy, and sustainability projects. Specific details of how a modern CCC would function have yet to be determined, but insights from the July hearing could provide guidance on shaping the initiative using the foundation local corps have already built.
In light of the economic downturn related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the workforce training opportunities that corps programs provide were a major discussion topic at the July hearing. Witness Tonya Gayle, executive director of Green City Force (GCF), outlined how they recruit 18 to 24 year-old New York City public housing residents to learn skills while working on projects in energy efficiency and urban farming. Over 80 percent of graduates are employed within six months of program completion. Alumni go on to pursue careers in renewable energy, energy efficiency, horticulture and landscaping, waste management, and more. Gayle was a panelist at a 2020 EESI briefing on conservation corps.
Witnesses also spoke about the public health, environmental, and recreational benefits of corps work. LaJuan Tucker, an environmental program officer with the City of Austin, discussed the Austin Civilian Conservation Corps’ (ACCC) work to re-naturalize an area devastated by flooding. The ACCC removed hazardous trees and invasive species and reintroduced native plants in consultation with the local community.
Wildfire mitigation was of particular concern to Subcommittee members. About 73,000 wildfires burn an average of about seven million acres in the United States annually, as pressures from increased development, along with a changing climate, increase wildfire frequency and severity.
Corps are already addressing this concern through wildfire fighting and mitigation activities. ACCC is engaged in creating defensible wildfire breaks that create a boundary between wildfires and homes. “Individuals employed under ACCC not only learn these workforce skills, they add to our public safety efforts,” said Tucker.
Scott Segerstrom, executive director of the Colorado Youth Corp Association, described how his corps graduated 175 fully-trained wildland firefighters and 699 certified chainsaw operators over the past three years, filling a critical need as the state contends with record wildfires.
Many corps programs already partner with federal agencies to complete projects on federal land, as Chas Robles, ancestral lands conservation corps director at Conservation International, described (Robles also spoke at the 2020 EESI briefing on conservation corps). Robles added that AmeriCorps, a federal agency, is a major program through which young people participate in local corps and receive funding.
Witness and Committee members throughout the hearing lauded the 2020 passage of the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act, which directs $1.9 billion per year for five years towards a backlog of federal land maintenance projects—funds that can be used to support more projects in partnership with corps organizations.
But, Robles noted, more needs to be done to expand access to corps opportunities. Participants currently receive a stipend of between $330 and $450 per week, making it challenging for participants, particularly those with children, to make ends meet. This major barrier can be rectified, he suggested, by raising AmeriCorps’ maximum living allowance. Local corps could additionally have more funding for participant wages if the federal government reduced the amount that local corps have to match from 25 percent to 10 percent or less.
The White House’s 2022 budget suggested funding the Civilian Climate Corps initiative at $10 billion, but some legislators have suggested funding figures as high as $30 billion, highlighting the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill as a vehicle to secure this funding. The $3.5 billion approved by the House Natural Resources Committee is only one part of the CCC spending proposed in the reconciliation bill. How much funding CCC initiatives end up with remains to be seen as legislators negotiate details ahead of a House floor vote.
As details on the program are hashed out, a consistent message from hearing witnesses could guide the process: policymakers should create such a corps “from strength, not from scratch,” using the foundation built by local corps to complement and scale up effective programs that already exist.
Authors: Valerie Nguyen and Amber Todoroff
More EESI resources on conservation corps programs:
Congressional Briefing: Growing the Climate Workforce: How Policies Today Could Shape the Jobs of Tomorrow
Congressional Briefing: A New Spin on Conservation Corps
Issue Brief: Conservation Corps: Pairing Climate Action with Economic Opportunity
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