On a call with reporters Tuesday, administration officials said the program will employ 20,000 people in its first year, with signups opening Wednesday.
Officials said on the call that those recruits will be “doing the important task of conserving and restoring our lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, deploying clean energy … implementing energy efficiency technologies that will cut consumer costs for the American people, and advancing environmental justice.”
Biden called for the creation of such a program on the campaign trail in 2020 and a version of the idea was included in early drafts of the Build Back Better Act, the climate and infrastructure bill that was later abandoned amid a Senate logjam, with the president instead signing the Inflation Reduction Act.
Progressive and climate advocates “really see this as the start and not the finish,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the progressive environmental advocacy group Sunrise Movement, who was also on the press call, “and we know if we have any hopes of heading off the worst of … climate change, we will have to expand and build upon the initial first steps that have been made here.”
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
