U.S. Steel has hired The Glover Park Group's Joe Lockhart to help spearhead its aggressive $3 million lobbying campaign to push for a $12 billion federal bailout of employee retirement benefits and up to 40 percent tariffs on imports, which would raise the price of every auto and refrigerator sold in the U.S., according to The New York Times.

Lockhart

USS CEO Tom Usher warns that if the industry does not get relief it will have to eliminate up to 60,000 steelworker jobs.

Bethlehem Steel, the No. 2 integrated steel producer after USS, cited the "legacy cost" burden as one of the reasons that drove it into bankruptcy last year. It has 13,000 employees compared with 75,000 retirees.

The steel industry is not unanimous about the need for a federal bailout. Nucor, the nation's leading steelmaker, has criticized the government assumption of retirement benefits as nothing short of "corporate welfare." Nucor's workforce is largely non-union.

Lockhart was President Clinton's press secretary and a former senior VP at Robinson Lerer Sawyer Miller. He told this website that Clark & Weinstock's Vin Weber, the former Republican Congressman from Minnesota, is working on a parallel campaign "Stand Up for Steel," which is an effort orchestrated by the steel workers' union. "I work directly for U.S. Steel," said Lockhart.