Topic - Barbara Crowder

$FILE - In this Feb. 28, 2013 file photo, Illinois Department of Natural Resources Director Marc Miller is seen at the state Capitol in Springfield, Ill. The DNR has hired just four of the 53 new employees it says it needs to oversee the state’s much praised compromise on regulating hydraulic fracturing. The agency has come under increasing criticism from “fracking” supporters who had hoped that high-volume oil and gas drilling could begin this summer. Miller says the agency is working on filling the jobs and still will meet a Nov. 15 legal deadline to have the rules in place. He says 23 jobs are posted, and the agency should have 15 people on board by the end of July. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman, File)$

Appeal filed over Illinois’ fracking rules

Associated Press

$In this March 29, 2013, file photo, workers tend to a well head during a hydraulic fracturing operation at an Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. gas well outside Rifle, Colo. Discoveries of vast reserves of oil and the slow progress of alternatives in recent years has given rise to a very different outlook on oil prices. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)-FILE$