*This story has been updated to include the Wolf Administration response.

Frustration over the secrecy surrounding Gov. Tom Wolf’s waiver program to his March 19 business closure order has reached a point where now two senators are demanding the administration open up about it by Wednesday or they may be forced to by subpoena.

Sens. Mike Regan, R-Cumberland/York counties, and Tom Killion, R-Delaware County, sent letters to the governor and his Community and Economic Development Secretary Dennis Davin saying the administration’s failure to commit to a timeline at a Senate committee hearing last week for producing records about the waiver program is unacceptable.

“As our committee members indicated, there are serious and significant questions outstanding regarding the waiver process generally, and particularly as to the perceived inconsistencies in the department’s granting and/or denial of these requests,” states the letters to Davin and Wolf signed by Regan, who chairs the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, and Killion, who chairs the Senate Community, Economic and Recreational Development Committee.

“Answers to these questions are essential to a legislative understanding of the governor’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is in turn essential to our consideration of current and future legislative proposals,” the letters state.

After being denied a timeline for the release of information about Gov. Tom Wolf's business closure waiver program at a Senate hearing last week, Sen. Mike Regan, R-Cumberland/York counties, (at podium) and Sen. Tom Killion, R-Delaware County, are demanding records about the program be delivered to them by Wednesday.

A Community & Economic Development spokeswoman confirmed receipt of the letter.

Department spokeswoman Casey Smith said, “Throughout the duration of the waiver process, DCED has been dedicated to responding to businesses in short order, as addressing the needs of Pennsylvania’s business community while protecting public health and safety has been a priority. The administration is reviewing the letter and will determine how best to respond in light of the extensive resources that have been devoted to addressing this disaster.”

The letters request a series of records documenting which businesses received waivers and which ones didn’t and the rationale behind those determinations be delivered to Regan’s Capitol office by Wednesday. If they aren’t produced by then, Regan said in a statement to PennLive, “my committee will take the necessary action to provide to Pennsylvanians the transparency they are seeking.”

Senate rules give standing committee chairmen the power to issue subpoenas to compel witness to attend a proceeding or to produce “any books, letters or other documentary evidence desired by the committee.” However, this power is rarely used. The last time was in the 2015-16 legislative sessions, according to Senate Secretary Megan Martin.

The letter demands 14 different sets of documents relating to the waiver program.

The waiver program was established after the governor released a list of life-sustaining businesses that were allowed to remain open as part of his COVID-19 response. Many businesses were barred from opening. The waiver program gave those businesses deemed not life sustaining a chance to make a case to be allowed to reopen.

But the decision-making process behind it has been cloaked in secrecy and resulted in inconsistencies that have raised questions about its fairness and potential favoritism.

For example, Highland Gardens was granted a waiver to open for in-person sales while other garden centers are limited to curbside pickup. Gilbane Building Company obtained a waiver to continue work on a $700 million casino in Philadelphia while a Franklin County builder was denied one specifically to complete work on a home to replace one a family lost in a fire. Nearly two dozen auto dealerships initially were granted waivers to be open for in-person sales but later those were revoked.

To date, neither the governor nor the secretary have shared any detailed information about the waiver program. Many media organizations, including PennLive, have submitted Right to Know requests for information about the program but all have received responses saying the office is closed and “Your request will be received and processed upon our offices reopening.”

Asked on Friday during a televised news conference about when transparency about the waiver program would be provided, Wolf replied that the department is not finished reviewing the 40,000-plus waiver requests it received before the waiver period ended on April 3.

Releasing information about it before that work is completed “would give a distorted view of what actually happened in the waiver process,” Wolf said. “The waiver process was an attempt in Pennsylvania to make sure that the businesses that were cited determined to be either essential or non essential that there was some avenue of appeal. I think we were the only state or certainly the first state to do that. And we were trying to bring a level of common sense and fairness to the process. So that’s what I think we did. We need to get to the end of the total process to make sure that we’re in a position to make that public.”

Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.

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