HARRISBURG -- Gov. Ed Rendell went nose to nose with Senate Republicans yesterday, and the governor blinked first.

	Carolyn Kaster, Associated Press
	Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell listens during a news conference in Harrisburg yesterday.

Two hours after flatly refusing to withdraw the renominations of two Cabinet members, Mr. Rendell reversed course late yesterday afternoon and said he would, reluctantly, comply with Senate Republicans' insistence that they get more time to consider the nominations.

The Senate has 25 legislative days to act on a nomination and yesterday was the deadline for the Senate to take action.

About 3 p.m., Mr. Rendell said, in no uncertain terms, that Senate Republicans should "stop playing partisan politics" and vote immediately on the reconfirmation of Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen McGinty and Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Michael DiBerardinis.

The Senate, which the GOP controls 29-21, has been delaying action on reconfirmation until it gets more information on what the GOP describes as possible ethics questions regarding $4 million in state grants that DEP and DCNR have made since 2003 to organizations that have hired the spouses of Ms. McGinty and Mr. DiBerardinis as either employees or consultants.

Mr. Rendell said the GOP senators were "merely playing partisan politics, which is the worst thing about this building," meaning the Capitol.

Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati and Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi adamantly denied engaging in partisan politics with the nominations.

They said the Senate has a duty, as the body that confirms all gubernatorial appointments, to do thorough background checks into nominees.

Mr. Scarnati said senators only learned five days ago about $2.6 million in grants made to the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, which has hired Karl Hausker, Ms. McGinty's husband, as a consultant, and about $1.5 million in grants made to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which employs Mr. DiBerardinis' wife, Joan Reilly.

"We are asking for more time to do our due diligence on these nominees," Mr. Pileggi said. "It was not a reflection on the work they've done as Cabinet secretaries."

Mr. Scarnati was unhappy that Mr. Rendell characterized the GOP tactics as partisan politics.

"The confirmation process is one of our major responsibilities," he said. "We can't ignore it. I know the governor is frustrated that his initiatives [on education, transportation and other issues] don't have the brightest future, even in his own party, but to lash out at us for doing our job is stunning and inappropriate."

About 5 p.m., after conferring with Ms. McGinty, Mr. DiBerardinis and the governor's legal staff, Mr. Rendell changed his mind and agreed to withdraw the two nominations.

Had Mr. Rendell not withdrawn the nominations, the Senate would have been required to take action on the two nominees yesterday, and they almost certainly would have been rejected. By withdrawing the nominations, the Senate now will have time to review the two cases.

He said he wasn't happy about doing so, because both Cabinet officers had done outstanding jobs in his first four years in office.

But, for the sake of getting something accomplished legislatively over the next two months -- a task he admitted will be difficult -- he decided to give in to the GOP demands for more time to consider the nominations.

"We have to conduct ourselves in a way to make progress [on legislation] achievable," he said.

The governor is becoming frustrated at the delays in acting on his measures to make health insurance available to 800,000 uninsured adults in the state; to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a private operator and get $965 million a year for road and bridge repairs; to tax oil company profits and raise additional funds for mass transit; and to allocate $75 million for pre-kindergarten across the state.

He said Ms. McGinty and Mr. DiBerardinis wanted the Senate to vote on them yesterday, but "I prevailed on them to wait. I regret that these two terrific people are being put through this."

Mr. Rendell said Mr. Hausker has only been paid $3,600 as a consultant to the PEC and it's "ludicrous" to think there was any conflict of interest in PEC getting the state grants, many of which had been started under Republican Gov. Tom Ridge.

He said Ms. Reilly has nothing to do with programs funded by the DCNR grants to the horticultural group.

The upshot is that Mr. Rendell will ask the state Ethics Commission for a ruling, no later than May 5, on whether the state grants to the two agencies pose any ethical problems for Ms. McGinty and Mr. DiBerardinis.

If the Senate gets this report by May 5, it could vote as soon as May 8 on the confirmations, Mr. Pileggi said.

Mr. Rendell said he had thought there might be a delay of 30 days or longer in getting the Ethics Commission report, and was pleased it can be done much sooner. That was another reason he agreed to change his mind.

Mr. Rendell portrayed Senate Republicans as the main delay in the confirmation process, but Mr. Pileggi, said there were Democratic senators opposed to Ms. McGinty also.

"This wasn't partisan politics," Mr. Pileggi said, meaning senators from both parties were ready to vote against Ms. McGinty.

Mr. Pileggi said he doubted that even "14 or 15" of the 21 Senate Democrats would have voted for her, and most if not all of the 29 GOP senators would have voted "no." The result would have been an embarrassing rejection of Ms. McGinty.

Mr. DiBerardinis didn't seem to face quite the same uphill battle.

Some Senate Democrats are upset with Ms. McGinty for criticizing Public Utility Commission Chairman Wendell Holland as being biased in favor of utility companies, and she may even have urged the governor to replace him, according to two senators who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Rendell disputed that idea, but acknowledged yesterday he may not renominate Mr. Holland to be PUC chairman, but rather just as a member.

Mr. Rendell did stand firm on one point. He said that if the Senate rejects either Cabinet member, he will simply let them finish out the next nearly four years as acting secretaries. He insisted he can do that.

"It's the law," he said.

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Correction/Clarification: (Published April 27, 2007) The last name of Michael DiBerardinis, secretary of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, was misspelled in this article as originally published April 26, 2007 about Gov. Ed Rendell's Cabinet reconfirmation fight.