We were as ecstatic as we get to read that the federal government is going to do something obvious and excellent, which is reconstitute the Civilian Conservation Corps.
At a time when we have too many unemployed (and more to come, as the war in Afghanistan winds down), and crumbling national parks, and young people who are detached from and ignorant of the outdoors (and, consequently, in terrible shape), this is as close to a magic bullet as we can imagine.
You take those unemployed folks and send them into nature, where they fix stuff that is actually broken, and leave something for the next 50 to 100 years. Like other generations did, for us. It isn’t free, but people get paid not exorbitantly for doing work that needs to be done. It hits that sweet spot where the Venn diagrams of “earning a wage” and “public service” overlap.
So, excited. For almost a minute. Then we read down, and saw that “the Obama Administration’s new 21st Century Conservation Service Corps,” also known as 21CSC, would implement “the first recommendation of the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative.”
How quickly joy sours, because as noted yesterday, to date, the AGO Initiative seems to be an exercise is press release formulation. In putting a new label on work already underway. In unfunded speculation about partnerships and coordinating across private-public organizations.
It walks, talks and quacks like simple flackery.
And sure enough, the new news isn’t about forming a new CCC. It’s about forming a National Council for 21CSC and a working group. Neither of which will do much, because as we noted earlier, the AGOI has no money and all projects “will have to find funding somewhere besides the U.S. government.” So what will the National Council do? It “will, primarily through 21CSC non-Federal partners”—meaning other people—develop a plan, “support” programs and experiences, and “demonstrate national impact.”
We want to be wrong on this, but it sounds like: we’ll run the show, you “non-Federal partners” provide the bodies and the money, and we’ll tell everyone what a good job we all did. Which does not sound like addressing the multibillion-dollar maintenance backlog in the national parks, which would have been a tremendous place to start.
Given that the National Council will be flying an unfunded loop-de-loop through that and other cavernous gaps in the federal budget, the goal of a raising a virtual conservation army (“engaging 100,000 participants per year”) seems like a slide from flackery into delusional thinking.
By the way, we get that no one has any money. The memorandum setting up the National Council is explicit on this: “Nothing in this agreement may be construed to obligate the agencies to any current or future expenditure of resources in advance of the availability of appropriations from Congress. Nor does this agreement obligate the agencies to spend funds on any particular project or purpose, even if funds are available.”
Part of what seems especially baffling here is this: the 21CSC already exists. It has a web site. When you go there, you find a list of existing programs, including well-established ones like Americorps. So it’s not clear how you implement something that is already there, or what will change with this new-old/federal-nonfederal/unfunded whatever.
Again, we’re begging here: prove us wrong. Actually create a meaningful new CCC and call it that. Or call it the 21CSC. Just don’t repackage what other people are doing and call it your own.
Photo: “CCC boys constructing ruble masonry rock dam,” ca. 1935, from the Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, Upper Mississippi Region (Region 3), Missouri State Office, via Wikimedia Commons.
