Conservative lawmakers don’t just hate President Joe Biden’s $8 billion plan to train 50,000 young people in green jobs. They really, REALLY hate it, writes Emma Dumain. “Not to be dramatic,” the Senate Western Caucus, a conservative-leaning group of lawmakers, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, “but lighting $8 billion on fire would probably be a better use of money and time.” Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas — who introduced a bill called the “Cancelling Climate Crusaders Act” that would ban the program — told Emma he agreed the program was, indeed, “that stupid.” The American Climate Corps is a modern-day version of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, which sought to ease unemployment during the Great Depression. Republicans made some noise when Biden formally established the program by executive order last fall, but his request last week for $8 billion to fund it has sent lawmakers into a tizzy. The Republican National Committee listed the program as an example of the “woke BS” Biden included in his fiscal 2025 budget wish list. Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) blasted the program on X, calling it “a radical green energy training program that will focus on ‘equity and environmental justice.’” While opposition from GOP lawmakers is perhaps unsurprising — given their objection to even wearing green House pins — the extent of their vitriol underscores just how difficult it will be for Democrats to erect a program 15 years in the making. The American Climate Corps was first popularized by progressive environmental advocates as a way to offer job training to young people while prioritizing work in the communities most affected by climate change and pollution. According to the administration’s official announcement, climate corps participants will “gain the skills necessary to access good-paying jobs” while working on a range of projects that tackle climate change, such as wetland restoration, clean energy deployment and wildfire management. GOP lawmakers say there is little interest in the program outside Washington. But one poll from the left-leaning Data for Progress found that 71 percent of all likely voters surveyed last October supported the concept of an American Climate Corps — and 58 percent of poll respondents identified as Republican.
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