Jon Campbell

– A group of fracking critics in the Southern Tier are trying to make sure Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joseph Martens is living up to his promises when it comes to an ongoing health review of fracking.

ALBANY — A top Senate Republican on Thursday said he will fight to keep a potential moratorium on hydraulic fracturing from getting a vote in the state Senate.

Senate Deputy Majority Leader Thomas Libous, R-Binghamton, said his goal is to “make sure no (moratorium) bill passes the Senate.”

Libous, a staunch fracking supporter whose district sits within the gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation, said he doesn’t want to see the issue on the Senate floor for a vote.

“I’m going to try to make sure that it doesn’t,” he said Thursday. “I feel that strongly on that issue.”

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday pushed back against the suggestion his administration is playing politics in further delaying a decision on hydraulic fracturing, saying the issue is “too important to make a mistake.”

Cuomo’s administration this week said it would not meet a Feb. 27 deadline to finalize a set of long-awaited regulations for high-volume fracking, the method used to extract natural gas from shale formations. In a letter Tuesday, Health Commissioner Nirav Shah said he needs a “few weeks” to complete a review of fracking’s impacts on human health — a study he launched in September.

Speaking in Queens on Wednesday, Cuomo told reporters he wouldn’t rush Shah to meet an “arbitrary” deadline.

“I don’t think that’s prudent and I don’t think that’s right and I won’t do it,” said Cuomo, who reiterated his call for a decision based on “facts and information” and not “emotion”.

The delay sparked a renewed round of criticism from gas-drilling supporters, who have expressed continued frustration with the state’s indecisiveness on whether to open the gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation to drilling.

ALBANY — New York regulators may have to signal a decision on hydraulic fracturing by Feb. 13 if they hope to meet an end-of-the-month deadline for finalizing a set of proposed regulations.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation faces a Feb. 27 deadline to either finalize the planned hydrofracking rules or allow them to expire.

ALBANY — On Wednesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo will lay out his vision for the third year of his term during his annual State of the State address.

Several topics are sure to be discussed — gun control, reforming the state’s education system and rebuilding after Superstorm Sandy, among them.

Far less likely to be discussed, however, is one of the highest-profile issues facing the first-term governor in 2013: hydraulic fracturing for natural gas.

ALBANY — More than 1,000 protesters lined a pathway on Wednesday, chanting and wielding signs as lawmakers and lobbyists made their way to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s third State of the State address.

Cuomo’s 80-minute speech, however, had nary a mention of the topic they were protesting: hydraulic fracturing for natural gas.

A Binghamton-area Assemblywoman penned a letter to the state’s top environmentalregulator Wednesday, urging him to call a meeting of the state’s High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing Advisory Panel — a once-touted committee of interested parties that hasn’t met in nearly a year.