President Joe Biden envisions putting thousands to work addressing the effects of climate change in a revamped New Deal-style public service program.

White House officials, including national climate adviser Gina McCarthy, say funding to establish a Civilian Climate Corps is a must-have in the Democrats-only spending bill to follow the bipartisan infrastructure deal. The idea is popular among many Democratic lawmakers, with several proposals gaining traction on the Hill from both left-wing and centrist members.

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The Civilian Climate Corps is modeled after the New Deal-era program that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established in the 1930s, which employed millions of young men to improve U.S. public lands, forests, and parks. . . .

Nonetheless, Democratic lawmakers and climate activists say Biden is proposing far too little to support the scale of the program needed, both to curb climate change and to employ those out of work from the pandemic. Centrist and left-wing Democrats alike say the program should be funded at a level multiple times that of the $10 billion Biden is proposing. . . .

Ultimately, bipartisanship is also critical for the program to last, Ali said.

“We’ve got to make sure there’s real long-term investment here that will help build the capabilities and confidence in the program,” he said. “That’s why it’s so important for folks on both sides of the aisle to come together and say, ‘This is something we’re going to invest in long term, for more than a decade,’ so we know that not only the resources are there, but the infrastructure is going to be there.”