You can apply now to be one of the first members of the American Climate Corps. President Joe Biden stated that the program was open for applications on Monday with 273 positions currently listed the White House websiteinclusive coastal conservation in Florida, power restoration in Montanaand forest management in the Sierra Nevada. The administration said the number of openings will soon reach 2000with positions spanning 36 states plus Puerto Rico and Washington, DC
“You will be paid to fight climate change, to learn how to install those solar panels, fight wildfires, rebuild wetlands, weatherize homes, and so much more,” Biden said at a press conference Monday in Virginia’s Prince William Forest. Park, originally said. built in 1936 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, a model for the Biden administration’s new program. “It’s going to protect the environment to build a clean energy economy.”
It’s part of an Earth Day-related policy push from Biden, who also announced $7 billion in grants to install solar and reduce energy costs for 900,000 low-income and disadvantaged households. The moves could appeal to the young people who were crucial to Biden’s 2020 victory over President Donald Trump and who, according to polls, sour about his performance in the White House. But this same demographic supports climate action, according to a poll taken last week by CBS News and YouGovwith more than three-quarters of those surveyed from both parties saying they wanted the US to take action to address climate change.
Monday’s announcements also gave a look at what climate corps positions might be available in the future, as the White House wants to hire 20,000 people in the first year of the program, with a target of 200,000 in five years. A new partnership with Trade Futuresa nonprofit construction company, suggests that members can help fill the county’s shortage of skilled workers who can install low-carbon technologies such as electric vehicle chargers and heat pumps, and at the same time gain skills to get well-paid work. The White House also plans to recruit members of the US Climate Corps in so-called “energy communities” – such as former coal mining towns – to help with projects such as environmental remediation.
The pay for the listed positions varies dramatically depending on the location and the experience required. at the bottom, coastal restoration work in Puerto Rico offers the equivalent of $12.50 an hour. At the top end, a position for a biological technician in Idaho requiring experience in plant identification and invasive species management pays $23 per hour. The lengths of the terms are all over the place, with some as short as two or three months, though most last at least a few months, and the website says that some positions can be extended or renewed.
Biden first announced his intention revive a version of FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps during his first days in office in 2021. But the program took a while to get off the ground after its funding was cut during negotiations with Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, to repeal the Act to approve Reducing Inflation, the landmark climate bill Biden. signed in 2022. Over time, the Biden administration has assembled funding from a bunch of different agencies to start the program, but it’s much smaller than climate advocates had hoped. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts asked 1.5 million jobs over a period of five years in legislation introduced in 2021.
Still, Ocasio-Cortez celebrated the corps’ official arrival at the press conference Monday. “People then said it was impossible,” she said. “We knew an American Climate Corps was not impossible because our country had done it before… What we needed, however, was the political will.”
