U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Alabama) is threatening to subpoena documents and compel top military leaders to appear before the House Armed Services Committee he chairs in state lawmakers’ growing fury over the U.S. Space Command headquarters selection announced this week.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM) commanding Gen. James Dickinson, are the immediate targets of Rogers’ anger. President Biden announced this week that Colorado Springs, Colo., would be the permanent headquarters of the relatively new command. Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., had been the No. 1 ranked candidate for the headquarters in the military’s official base selection process.

Colorado Springs was fifth in those rankings. But the president reportedly decided to keep the headquarters where it is to speed its arrival at full operational readiness to defend American space assets against potential enemies. Alabama lawmakers see a different story.

“Your refusal to abide by the Committee’s repeated requests for responsive documents and transcribed interviews can only be considered obfuscation and purposeful delay, highlighted by the fact that the basing decision was decided while the Committee’s requests are outstanding,” Rogers wrote the two leaders in a letter released Friday. “This is unacceptable.”

“It now appears you have something to hide,” Rogers wrote, “otherwise a forthright response to the committee’s patient and numerous requests would have already come. If you fail to adequately respond, I will be forced to seek a subpoena for the relevant documents we have requested on multiple occasions, and to seek your compelled appearance.”

Rogers said he has made five requests for documents related to the space command.

U.S. Rep. Dale Strong (R-Alabama), a member of the Armed Forces Committee, also released a letter Friday asking Rogers to call Kendall and Dickinson to appear.

Strong said the Defense Department “displayed an alarming lack of commitment to the Air Force’s Strategic Basing process and the strategic interests of the United States, as proven by their contradictory statements and refusal to comply with committee requests for information and interviews regarding the headquarters selection.”

Colorado Springs, fifth overall in the base candidate rankings on a range of issues such as cost of living, job market for spouses, available medical care and quality schools for children, won the headquarters by a “deliberate, taxpayer-funded manipulation of a competitive selection process,” Strong said. The president’s decision “is undeniably malicious,” partly driven by politics and “a sense of retribution” against Alabama’s state laws, he said. That is an apparent reference to Alabama’s current ban on virtually all abortions, a law that could place barriers between female military members or wives of military members and reproductive health care.

The headquarters was started in Colorado Springs to meet new space threats and its facilities and equipment upgraded to do the mission in Colorado as the selection process proceeded. The president said it was now close to full readiness in explaining the decision to leave the headquarters there.