The White House is considering Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight Director Aida Alvarez to head the Small Business Administration.
Current SBA Administrator Phil Lader is reportedly leaving the agency, and Ms. Alvarez is one of several people being considered for his post, sources said last week.
"It is more than a rumor, but it is in no way cast in concrete," said an official of the housing oversight agency.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Alfonse M. D'Amato has been busy shoring up his support at home.
Last week he s3went to great pains to soothe a festering public dispute with fellow Republican and New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani at a $1,000 a head fund-raiser for the senator.
Sen. D'Amato had been at odds with Mayor Giuliani since he was a federal prosecutor, and the mayor opposed the successful gubernatorial bid of George Pataki, a protege of the senator.
But hard feelings were glossed over at the Dec. 10 fete when Sen. D'Amato led a ballroom full of lobbyists and political supporters in chanting "Ru-dy! Ru-dy!" Gov. Pataki then got in on the act, giving the mayor partial credit for the Yankees' World Series victory.
The rapprochement may help Sen. D'Amato, whose poll numbers are miserably low.
Robert E. Litan, economic studies director at the Brookings Institution, has joined the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee.
Mr. Litan was deputy assistant U.S. attorney general from 1993 to 1995 and directed the finance division of the Office of Management and Budget in 1995 and 1996. He also was a member of the Presidential-Congressional Commission on the savings and loan crisis in 1992 and 1993.
Mr. Litan replaces Edward Kane, a longtime member of the shadow panel and a Boston College finance professor.
Eileen McMahon has been named director of congressional and public affairs for the Farm Credit Administration. Before joining the agency, she had been director of legislative and public affairs at the Agriculture Department.
She replaces Deborah Dawson, who took a job with the State Department.
David W. Roderer, one of the industry's top insurance lawyers, has jumped to the Washington office of Goodwin, Procter & Hoar from Winston & Strawn.
"The firm has a stellar team of banking and insurance expertise unmatched elsewhere," said Mr. Roderer, who has represented more than a dozen trade groups in several recent Supreme Court cases giving banks greater insurance powers.
Mr. Roderer isn't the only lawyer changing firms as the new year approaches. Murray A. Indick joined the Washington office of Dechert Price & Rhoads after nearly 12 years with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering.
