Tuesday, 25 August 2026

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) signed a Memorandum of Agreement establishing the Small Business Investment Company-Energy (SBIC-E) Initiative, according to a DOE announcement.

The initiative attaches to an existing SBA vehicle rather than a new funding line. DOE said the SBA's Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) Program currently holds USD 58 billion in combined portfolio value.

DOE listed the first set of investment priorities for SBIC-E as technologies supporting American energy production and energy security, alongside critical minerals, advanced manufacturing, and advanced materials.

The underlying SBIC Program has a long track record in small-business finance. DOE said it has invested USD 147 billion in American small businesses since 1958.

On employment, DOE said SBIC-backed businesses have created or supported 10.6 million jobs since 1995.

Public spending in the Indian state of Jharkhand would be screened and tagged by its climate relevance under a framework published by IEEFA. The report, 'A Green Budgeting Framework for Jharkhand', was developed with the state government's Task Force on Sustainable Just Transition.

The tagging mechanic sits at the centre of the design. Every line of state expenditure would receive one of five labels ranked by environmental relevance, according to IEEFA. At one end sits green positive (G+), then transition enabling (T) and enabling or systemic (E). Spending with no environmental bearing is marked neutral (N); the remainder falls under brown or negative (B).

Six objective areas define what counts as green under the scheme. Two cover the climate response directly: mitigation, and adaptation and resilience. Natural capital protection forms a third, with resource efficiency and circular economy a fourth. The final pair are sustainable mobility and urban systems, and Just Transition and coal district resilience.

A separate 'Just Transition flag' would run alongside the five tiers. IEEFA says it would mark money going directly to coal districts, to communities that depend on fossil fuels for work, to workers who lose their jobs, and to others hit by structural economic change.

Running the system would fall to a green budgeting cell housed in Jharkhand's Department of Finance. IEEFA sets out two supporting bodies for that cell: the Task Force on Sustainable Just Transition, and an independent expert panel.

India has no formal national green budgeting framework in place, said Vibhuti Garg, Director of IEEFA - South Asia, though she pointed to several earlier initiatives that laid groundwork for one. Garg linked that to wider recognition that public expenditure needs closer alignment with environmental priorities.

Public officials in some communities are being inundated with seemingly fake public feedback intended to block renewable energy projects and promote fossil fuels, according to Canary Media.

Ohio is one of the states dealing with the problem, and state regulators there have done little to crack down on it, Canary Media reported.

The fabricated submissions arrive through the same channels officials use to gauge genuine local sentiment on proposed projects, which places the burden of separating authentic objections from manufactured ones on the recipients themselves. Canary Media reports that some parties want a crackdown on the practice, while regulatory action in Ohio has so far been limited.