EPA announces environmental justice program within Climate Corps

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday announced a partnership with AmeriCorps to form the Environmental Justice Climate Corps, an offshoot of the previously-announced American Climate Corps aimed at recruitment in low-income areas.

The agency said in its announcement Wednesday that it will open applications for the program early next year.

The new program, which will pay participants a living allowance, is part of an effort to recruit members of the Climate Corps from communities directly affected by the hazards it seeks to combat, with a goal of recruiting over 250 people over three years.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan is set to formally announce the initiative alongside AmeriCorps CEO Michael Smith as part of a panel at 2024 Climate Week in New York, where President Biden delivered remarks Tuesday evening.

“Our partnership is a first-of-its-kind effort within the federal government to expand pathways into environmental justice careers,” Regan said in a statement. “This program will create opportunities for young people through President Biden’s American Climate Corps that will help folks in overburdened communities access and benefit from historic funding secured under the President’s Investing in America agenda.”

A climate corps modeled after the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps was originally included in Biden's proposed Build Back Better agenda before it was torpedoed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) at the end of 2021. Elected Democrats including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) then called either for the inclusion of such a program in the final Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) bill or for Biden to create one through executive action.

The corps was ultimately one of the casualties of the process of developing the legislation that passed in 2022, which is the largest climate legislation in U.S. history but less ambitious than what progressive Democrats called for, largely due to Manchin's involvement in its development. Biden established the corps through executive action in September 2023, however, and it swore in its first members this June.