Service Year Alliance released the following statement today in response to The White House announcement concerning next steps for the American Climate Corps:
WASHINGTON–“Service Year Alliance commends today’s announcement of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Departments of Commerce, Interior, Agriculture, Labor, and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and AmeriCorps to work together to implement the American Climate Corps. This interagency collaboration is a promising and important next step in bringing the vision of the American Climate Corps to life.
The American Climate Corps has the potential to mobilize young people to tackle pressing climate and environmental resilience challenges through national service, as well as the capability to build a workforce to fill the clean energy and infrastructure jobs created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act.
Alongside our partners in the national service field and as leaders of the Partnership for the Civilian Climate Corps, we submitted a series of American Climate Corps implementation recommendations to the White House, including interagency partnerships as a high priority. Bringing together federal agencies will increase communities’ access to climate corps program and project opportunities, while simultaneously accomplishing the project goals of these federal agencies.
The idea of a national climate corps is highly popular among young people and has the power to lower greenhouse gas emissions and household energy costs, build on-ramps to conservation and energy sector jobs, address environmental justice, and help communities improve infrastructure and resilience.
We urge the Administration and these federal agencies to quickly follow this memorandum with action to meet the scope and urgency of the climate challenges facing our country, developing new opportunities for young people to take action and gain the skills and experiences needed for good-paying green jobs.”
Explore resources Service Year Alliance has created to help scale climate service year program here.
