HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Senate on Tuesday passed legislation that would authorize a tax on the shale gas industry and set uniform standards for development, changes that critics said would leave many municipalities with little control over the use of their land.

Approval in the House was expected on Wednesday.

59 New Jersey and out-of-state conservation and civic organizations have joined in a letter to President Obama asking him not to allow his administration to allocate more money for the Delaware River deepening project.

The groups see the Army Corps of Engineers project to deepen the river from Delaware Bay to north of Camden as environmentally destructive and economically wasteful. Deepening is currently being done off Delaware.

Written by Janet Tauro, NJEF Board Chair

Congressman Jon Runyan's statement in his Jan. 18 commentary, "Find new use for nuclear plant," that nuclear power must be "a part of a future energy independence strategy" and done in an "environmentally responsible fashion" is an oxymoron, and reflective of a banal history of wishful thinking.

Any technology that emits daily releases of a cocktail of radioactive isotopes and leaves behind a deadly pile of waste that remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years does not fit the definition of "environmentally responsible."