E&E DAILY | Democrats and environmental advocates want to make a climate jobs program the law of the land — and they may be running out of time to come up with a strategy.

President Joe Biden created the American Climate Corps by executive order last year after a similar iteration fell out of the Inflation Reduction Act negotiations.

The program swore in its first batch of members in June, and thousands of young people around the country are preparing to enter the workforce in the field of conservation and clean energy.

But it's widely expected that a Donald Trump victory would be fatal for that program. The former president has pledged to roll back Biden-era environmental regulations if returned to office, and Republicans overwhelmingly consider the American Climate Corps a waste of money and federal resources. Critics have in the past called it "socialist" and tantamount to setting physical dollar bills aflame.

The need to protect the initiative through legislation — perhaps as soon as the post-election, lame-duck session of Congress — isn't lost on lawmakers who have championed the Climate Corps.

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