A spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, where Plonski is the assistant commissioner for water resources management, said Plonski merely wanted the commission to act.
"All we're doing is putting a little pressure on the DRBC, saying let's make sure that you don't sit on this issue, that you assess it properly and come to a decision," said Larry Ragonese.
"The No. 1 complaint about government is that it does not act," he said. "We're trying to have government be responsive in a timely fashion."
The industry has consistently urged the commission to act so that drilling can proceed.
The DEP comments struck Jeff Tittel of the New Jersey Sierra Club as disingenuous. "Then how come they don't act" on other environmental measures, Tittel said. "Want me to go down the list of things they're holding up?"
When it comes to environmental protection, the DEP waits, he said, "and when it comes to what polluters want, they think, we've got to hurry up and do it."
The commission, an interstate agency formed by a federal compact, regulates water quality and quantity in the area drained by the Delaware River and its tributaries, which collectively provide drinking water to Philadelphia and New York City.
Its five members are states with land in the basin - Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware - plus a representative from the Army Corps of Engineers.
Most of the upper basin is atop the Marcellus Shale formation, rich in natural gas. Thousands of drilling leases have been filed in northeastern Pennsylvania within the watershed.
The commission has enacted what amounts to a moratorium on gas drilling in the basin until regulations are in place, and that has led to a tug-of-war not only about the regulations but also how fast the commission should adopt them.
