AOC Revived Her Green New Deal Army and Picked the One Agency Taxpayers Really Can’t Trust

President Trump shut down Joe Biden's American Climate Corps on his very first day back in the White House.

Now Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey want to bring it back bigger, with a million and a half recruits.

And the federal agency they picked to run it has a track record every taxpayer should see.

AOC and Markey Dust Off the Civilian Climate Corps

On September 24, 2026, Ocasio-Cortez and Markey reintroduced the Civilian Climate Corps for Jobs and Justice Act.

The pitch hasn't changed since they first rolled it out in April 2021.

The bill calls for 1.5 million government-funded "service opportunities" over five years.

The recruits would work on clean energy, "climate resilience," environmental remediation, and so-called sustainable infrastructure.

The 2021 version promised every corps member at least $15 an hour plus up to $50,000 in tax-free education awards.

It also steered at least half the money to so-called "environmental justice" communities – that's the "Justice" in the title.

The new version promises career pathways into union jobs – a nice gift for the union bosses endorsing the bill.

Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Chris Van Hollen, and Richard Blumenthal signed on in the Senate.

Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Ro Khanna, and Maxwell Frost are among more than 40 House Democrats backing it.

The endorsement list includes SEIU, AFSCME, the Sierra Club, and the Sunrise Movement – the same activists who staged sit-ins in Nancy Pelosi's office to launch the Green New Deal.

The Agency That Failed Eight Straight Audits

AOC and Markey want AmeriCorps to run the whole operation.

AmeriCorps failed eight consecutive financial audits over the past decade.

It sat on $3.7 billion in assets while collecting well over a billion taxpayer dollars a year.

In April 2025, the Trump administration put 535 of its roughly 700 full-time staffers on administrative leave and canceled around $250 million in contracts.

"AmeriCorps has a long history of abusing taxpayer dollars," said Utah Republican Burgess Owens, who chairs the House Higher Education Subcommittee.

Owens said the agency "continuously fails to meet basic accountability standards."

That is the outfit Democrats want in charge.

You wouldn't let a contractor who botched your kitchen eight times remodel your whole house.

AOC wants to give him the keys to the neighborhood.

FDR's Name Can't Save This Scheme

Democrats love to dress this up as a modern version of Franklin Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps.

That comparison falls apart the second you look at it.

FDR's program put desperate men to work during the Great Depression, when more than one in five American workers was unemployed.

Those men planted forests, built trails, and fought fires.

They weren't signing up for a political movement dressed as a jobs program.

Mitch McConnell saw it for what it was back in 2021, calling it "pure socialist wish-fulfillment."

Wyoming Senator John Barrasso warned that "the Climate Corps' primary job would be to wage war on American oil, natural gas, and coal production."

Heritage Foundation budget expert David Ditch pointed out that even the name gives the game away.

"Naming the program 'climate corps' is a purely ideological decision, showing that the program is primarily designed to benefit the left," Ditch wrote.

Senate Republicans even flagged an admission from Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse – the corps "just doesn't measurably reduce emissions."

So it doesn't fix the climate, it doesn't answer to auditors, and it hands activists a taxpayer-funded paycheck.

The Green New Deal Is Coming Back One Brick At a Time

This is the Green New Deal smuggled back in pieces.

When the full resolution landed in 2019, the American Action Forum – led by former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin – put the price tag as high as $93 trillion.

That worked out to roughly $600,000 per household.

When Senate Republicans forced a vote in March 2019, it failed 57 to 0 – most Democrats wouldn't even put their names on it.

A climate corps here, a union carve-out there, an education giveaway tucked inside – and before long, the pieces add up to the same monster the Senate already rejected.

With Republicans running Congress, this bill has no path forward right now.

That's exactly why the timing matters.

AOC dropped it the same day she kicked off her upstate New York tour in Buffalo, with the November midterms closing in and her 2028 options wide open.

If Democrats grab the House gavel in November, bills like this stop being press releases and start being bargaining chips.

And a national jobs program with her name on it is the kind of résumé line every presidential hopeful wants.

Keep Republicans in charge of Congress, and the Climate Corps stays as dead as Trump left it – because the next person asked to pay for AOC's climate army is you.

Sources:

• Emma Colton, "Trump admin guts Clinton-era volunteer agency that failed eight consecutive audits," Fox News, April 17, 2025.
• Megan Henney, "Move over Marine Corps, AOC's pushing for 1.5M-strong 'Climate Corps,'" Fox Business, May 5, 2021.
• Senate Republican Communications Center, "The Civilian Climate Corps Is 'Pure Socialist Wish-Fulfillment,'" October 27, 2021.
• John Barrasso, "Biden's 'civilian climate corps' with hefty price tag still priority in spending spree," Fox News, October 31, 2021.
• David Ditch, "8 Ridiculous 'Green New Deal' Programs in Democrats' Bloated Spending Bill," The Heritage Foundation, October 25, 2021.
• Megan Henney, "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal could cost $93 trillion, group says," Fox Business, February 26, 2019.