Earth Corps international member Vanessa Ndikontar plants a tree in a restored area of Arbor Lake Park in Burien, Wash. (AP Photo/Manuel Valdes
Good things are happening! Young people score job training to fight the climate crisis, California says you should be allowed to fix your iPhone, Pennsylvania pushes back on health insurance AI, and the FTC is suing over Amazon’s monopolistic practices.
A New Climate Deal
On Wednesday, Biden announced a new climate jobs training program, the American Climate Corps. The administration says the program could put up to 20,000 young people to work in its first year on projects like habitat restoration, climate adaptation projects, and installation of clean energy infrastructure.
The program is modeled after FDR’s Works Progress Administration, a civil works program that put four million people to work during the Great Depression, built critical infrastructure around the country, and boosted the economy.
The American Climate Corps will pay participants and act as a jobs training program, since most positions won’t require previous experience. The administration is also proposing new regulations that would streamline entry to civil-service jobs after the program. It’s funded in part and driven by momentum from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
Biden first called for this sort of job program in an executive order in his first week on the job, and the idea for a climate corps was first developed by progressive environmental activist groups like the youth-led Sunrise Movement, as well as by progressive lawmakers like Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), both of whom have backed a Green New Deal. Ten states have already launched similar climate corps programs, funded in part through Americorps.