Want to get a job planting trees, restoring wetlands, or stopping wildfires before they start? If a new bill in Congress ends up passing, your job hunt might get a lot easier.
Two Democrats, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Representative Joe Neguse of Colorado, revived the 21st Century Conservation Corps Act last Friday. The act would put $40 billion toward creating jobs in U.S. forests and parks, reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires, and expanding access to all kinds of parks.
It would also establish a “conservation corps” to put people to work planting trees and restoring public lands and waters, training them for environmentally-friendly careers. The bill could put money behind an executive order President Biden signed in January to create a similar-sounding program called the Civilian Climate Corps. It was inspired by one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous New Deal programs to take on the Great Depression. The original Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, started in 1933 and went on to employ 3 million Americans over the next decade.
One potential problem with Biden’s revived CCC plan is funding. His order stipulated that the corps would have to be created “within existing appropriations.” The thing is, the president can’t just snap his fingers and get funding, because Congress oversees the federal budget. The 21st Century Conservation Corps Act could back up Biden’s plan with $9 billion.
If the new bill didn’t pass, Biden might still be able to find funding for the new CCC through other programs in the budget, said Alejandro Camacho, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and a scholar at Center for Progressive Reform, an environmental think tank. “I’m sure they could cobble things together, but this is basically a way to provide a massive injection of money towards this.”
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