A decision to permit hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in New York state will trigger a cool response from drillers, the state’s environmental regulator said.

Low natural-gas prices have dulled interest in New York’s gas reserves, Joseph Martens, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, said at a conference today. The agency is reviewing more than 66,700 comments on a draft plan for drilling in the state’s portion of a geological formation called the Marcellus Shale.

Since New York began developing gas-drilling rules in July 2008, prices have plunged more than 80 percent, sinking to a decade low $1.902 per million British thermal units on April 19. During that time, Pennsylvania and Ohio allowed producers such as Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Talisman Inc. to drill, attracting billions of dollars in investment.