The Corps "shall aim to conserve and restore public lands and waters, bolster community resilience, increase reforestation, increase carbon sequestration in the agricultural sector, protect biodiversity, improve access to recreation, and address the changing climate."

In 1933, Franklin D Roosevelt created a similar program called the Civilian Conservation Corps. They cut trails, built roads, and solidified infrastructure, and had about 500,000 annual members at its height.

The CCC lasted until 1942, built 100,000 miles of roads and trails, 318,000 dams, and tens of thousands of bridges, and employed over 3 million citizens over its lifetime. Since then, there have been various smaller decentralized programs like the Corps Network and AmeriCorps, all which received some federal funding, but nothing at the scale of the CCC. President Obama tried to expand AmeriCorps to 100,000 members, but ultimately failed, and its membership was about 75,000.

In Biden's Build Back Better proposal, he calls for hiring 300,000 Americans at a cost of anywhere from $10 to $30 billion for his Climate Corps, at a cost of between $40,000 to $70,000 per member.