After being thwarted by Congress, President Joe Biden will use his executive authority to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps that will serve as a major green jobs training program.
In an announcement Wednesday, the White House said the program will employ more than 20,000 young adults who will build trails, plant trees, help install solar panels and do other work to boost conservation and help prevent catastrophic wildfires.
The climate corps had been proposed in early versions of the sweeping climate law approved last year but was jettisoned amid strong opposition from Republicans and concerns about cost.
Democrats and environmental advocacy groups never gave up on the plan and pushed Biden in recent weeks to issue an executive order authorizing what the White House now calls the American Climate Corps.
...With the new corps “and the historic climate investments won by our broader movement, the path towards a Green New Deal is beginning to become visible,” Prakash said, referring to a comprehensive jobs-and-climate plan supported by many activists and some Democrats but ridiculed by Republicans as a socialist nightmare that would raise taxes and hamper the economy...more
1 comment:
I'd wager that those 20,000 young workers are arriving from Venezuela as I write this. I'm pretty sure we already have volunteer organizations and the corps of engineers to deal with coastal areas, the forest service working on forests, and plenty of licensed solar and wind energy contractors and thousands of trails associations across the U.S. blazing new trails through our public and private lands. What we really need to secure our border and slow illegal immigrants and drugs coming in at alarming rates. What we really need is for our young men and women to get off their collective arses and get an education, learn a trade, or serve their country or community. My fear is that they won't. I hope I'm wrong...
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