The American Spectator

Some high profile Republican lobbyists, most notably Dick Armey’s former key adviser Edward Gillespie, have taken on American steel firms as clients and are pressing the administration to keep the tariffs in place. “These guys were free-marketers when they were in government. Now that they aren’t, they are no better than the Democrats,” says a Treasury Department source, who adds that the steel issue could be a contributing factor to O’Neill’s exit strategy. “But it wouldn’t be the issue that pushes him out. It would take more than that to push him out of the building.” He didn’t say what that would be.

p> WHITMAN DID WHAT? br> The White House is angry at EPA chief Christie Whitman over the resignation last week of one of her enforcement staff, Eric Schaeffer , a civil servant hired at the agency by the first Bush administration’s EPA chief William Reilly . /p>

According to a Republican lobbyist on environmental issues, the White House isn’t peeved because Schaeffer left, or even that he made his resignation letter public. “It’s that she knew he was leaving days before it was leaked and she didn’t give the Bush people a head’s-up,” says the lobbyist.

Furthering angering the White House is that Schaeffer’s letter was complimentary to Whitman for resisting its demands that her agency ease up on enforcement and prosecution. Whitman has already been taken to the Bush woodshed for several embarrassing leaks to the media, including a recent decision to change the way Superfund site cleanups are paid for.

p> BECK AND CALL