The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is doing its best to be a “beacon of stability“ in this “volatile regulatory environment”, Republican commissioner Neil Chatterjee said Tuesday, while taking an apparent swipe at the Trump administration’s latest proposal to aid failing coal and nuclear plants.

Speaking at the REFF Wall Street conference in New York, Chatterjee also suggested that Republicans’ instinct to protect the US coal industry stems in part from a lack of replacement clean-energy jobs in parts of the country.