California Conservation Corps- Energy Corps

Corpsmembers -- young men and women between the ages of 18 and 25 -- sign up for a year of working outdoors to improve California's natural resources.  They also assist with emergency response: fighting fires, floods, earthquakes and pest infestations.

 

The CCC, modeled after the original Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s, is the oldest and largest conservation corps now in operation.  Created by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. in 1976, more than 120,000 young people have been a part of the CCC since that time.

Proposition 39 that was passed by voter initiative in November 2012 and established a $550 million “Clean Energy Job Creation Fund” for five years.  For fiscal year 2013-14, California’s Legislature appropriated revenue through SB 73 (Chapter 29, Statutes of 2013).  Proposition 39 funding is allocated to Local Education Agencies (LEAs) and Community Colleges.  As part of the "Clean Energy Jobs", the CCC received an allocation of $5 million per ear for five years to help create the CCC Energy Corps program.  The Program is designed to have conservationist crews throughout California perform energy conservation-related activities, including energy building surveys and energy lighting installations for LEAs and Districts K-12.

As the Energy Corps moves into its third year, the Proposition 39 funding has helped enable the program to create many great partnerships with the energy industry and energy related organizations, creating successful internship and job opportunities for the corpsmembers who have served in the program.  The program also has initiatives to receive additional state funding to expand crews throughout the state in the fiscal year 2016-17 to conduct energy surveys to assess building conditions, identify energy-efficiency opportunities, and perform energy-efficient installations at a low cost to the LEAs and other state/federal entities.