HARRISBURG — It is safe to say that few, if any, state workers know all the intimate details of their immediate family's business dealings — including the clients and customers of the companies where their spouses, parents, siblings and children work.

But that is what Gov. Ed Rendell's administration fears may be required if Pennsylvania courts uphold a State Ethics Commission opinion issued earlier this year about grants given to entities that employ the spouses of two cabinet secretaries.

Administration lawyers are warning that thousands of officials and state employees — particularly those involved in decisions about spending public funds — could be at risk of fines and criminal penalties if the ethics standard is upheld.

"It also is not clear how public officials and public employees could fulfill such a duty on an ongoing basis without causing substantial interference with the performance of (their) duties," Rendell's lawyers said in a petition asking Commonwealth Court to intervene.

The issue surfaced in April, when the Philadelphia Daily News reported that the husband of Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty and the wife of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Michael DiBerardinis had business connections to entities that obtained grants from those departments.

McGinty's husband, Karl Hausker, had been a consultant to the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. The council and a subsidiary received more than $2.7 million in grants from the Department of Environmental Protection since 2003.

DiBerardinis' wife, Joan Reilly, works for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the recipient of at least $1.5 million from the department her husband leads since 2003.

The matter became a problem for Rendell during the secretaries' reconfirmation process in the spring, and Rendell's general counsel, Barbara Adams, sought the Ethics Commission's advice.

In both cases, the commission's advisory opinion was that the secretaries would have to be insulated and removed from any involvement in the grant process, including access to confidential information about it.

"That Ethics Commission finding was so expansive that we have concerns that even tangential relationships may now pose legal obstacles," said Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo. The administration contends that awarding the grants did not involve the secretaries' use of their authority and that a conflict of interest does not arise when an official lacks the intention of giving a financial benefit to his or her immediate family or an associated business.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, the state House of Representatives said extending the Ethics Act's conflict-of-interest provisions to nonprofits such as the horticultural society would make all public officials, and particularly state lawmakers, less likely to volunteer for nonprofit entities.

"If someone is working with a nonprofit, by very definition they're not seeking self-enrichment," Ardo said.

The Ethics Commission has responded that the Ethics Act defines a business as any organization, that McGinty and DiBerardinis have considerable power over grants and that their "intent" is not legally relevant.

Ethics Commission chief counsel Robin M. Hittie in a brief dismissed the administration's scenarios about how the advisory opinion might have repercussions for thousands of state workers.

"The petitioners merely leapt to such conclusions in an attempt to bolster their appeals," she wrote.