Gov. Ed Rendell signed an executive order today to revive a state agency that assesses data on the cost and quality of health care.

Efforts were underway to contact employees of the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council and call them back to work. At least some could be back as early as tomorrow, the governor's spokesman, Chuck Ardo, said this afternoon.

Thirty-eight employees -- nearly the council's entire staff -- were informed June 30 by the state Office of Administration that they were being terminated. Several more were let go a few days later.

While the Rendell administration attributed the agency shutdown to a failure to enact reauthorizing legislation, a spokesman for Senate Republican leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, called it a "political stunt" on the part of the administration.

Leading Republicans and Democrats have supported continuation of the cost containment council, but reauthorization has been held up by a partisan squabble involving other issues.

Many Senate Republicans and some Democrats have supported linking reauthorization of the council to reapproval of the MCare abatement program, which helps doctors pay their malpractice insurance costs.

While Mr. Rendell and House Democrats also support restoring the MCare abatements, they have linked their endorsement to significant progress in extending health coverage to the state's uninsured. Their proposal to do so, however, has met with a cold reception from Republican leaders.

Mr. Ardo said that since the budget was passed last week and it was "the clear legislative intent to fund the agency, the governor chose to interpret that he could go on and authorize the agency until the legislature did its work."

The executive order will be in effect until Nov. 30, or until the Legislature takes action to reauthorize the agency, whichever occurs first.