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Rendell gives senators more time on cabinet votes
HARRISBURG - Averting a likely Senate rejection of two of his cabinet nominees, Gov. Ed Rendell on Wednesday gave senators more time to consider the nominations after questions arose about millions of dollars in grants the nominees' agencies awarded to groups that employ their spouses.
Both nominees - Kathleen McGinty, the Environmental Protection secretary, and Michael DiBerardinis, the Conservation and Natural Resources secretary - have served in Rendell's cabinet since the Democrat took office in 2003.
Wednesday was the last legislative session day the Senate could reject or approve the two nominees. By withdrawing and resubmitting their nominations, Rendell gives the Senate another 25 legislative days to consider them.
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At first, Rendell told reporters Wednesday he would reject a request by top Republican senators that he renominate McGinty and DiBerardinis and seek an opinion from the State Ethics Commission on the legality of the grants.
Two hours later, Rendell called a hastily arranged news conference to say he had withdrawn McGinty and DiBerardinis and resubmitted their names. While he agreed to request an Ethics Commission opinion, he also insisted that the grants did not violate ethics laws.
In addition, he said the groups in question did not benefit from their associations with the secretaries' spouses and blamed the Republican-controlled Senate for practicing partisan politics.
"No two people have served the commonwealth of Pennsylvania better than Mike DiBerardinis and Katie McGinty in the last four years," Rendell said.
The Senate's Republican leader, Sen. Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, rejected suggestions that partisan politics drove the issue. Few of the Senate's 21 Democrats would have voted Wednesday for McGinty and DiBerardinis, he said.
Pileggi said senators simply wanted more time to answer questions after he said they became aware of the grants several days earlier.
"In this era, where we want the public and our members to be operating in a fully informed and open, transparent way, we thought that was the only way we could proceed forward and have a fair vote on these two nominees," Pileggi said.
Earlier in the day, the Senate's Democratic leader, Robert J. Mellow of Lackawanna County, said he supported taking more time to answer questions about the grants and other matters, but expected both McGinty and DiBerardinis to be confirmed eventually.
Rendell said he believes the Ethics Commission can yield an opinion quickly enough for the Senate to vote on the nominees by May 8.
McGinty and DiBerardinis received confirmation from the Republican-controlled Senate when they were first nominated in 2003, but require another Senate approval to serve in Rendell's second term, which began in January.
McGinty's husband, Karl Hausker, is a consultant to the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and its subsidiary, Enterprising Environmental Solutions Inc., which have received more than $2.7 million in grants from her department since 2003, according to the Rendell administration.
The money was to pay for activities that included agricultural conservation, watershed protection, abandoned mine cleanups and more. Rendell pointed out that the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and Enterprising Environmental Solutions received DEP grants before McGinty joined the department, and were rejected for more than $4 million in grant applications during his term.
DiBerardinis' wife, Joan Reilly, runs a parks program for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which has received $1.5 million from his department since 2003. The money goes to help manage a program created by DiBerardinis that encourages tree-planting.
At least $500,000 more in grants went from McGinty's agency to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and from DiBerardinis' agency to the Pennsylvania Environmental Council.
The Rendell administration has said that McGinty and DiBerardinis approved a final list of grant winners, but that department staff selected the winners after a competitive application process that adhered to pre-existing guidelines.
