They pledged to pull out all the steps

This one comes from the website thehill.com.  Here’s the quote: “Environmentalist[s] and Democrats have pledged to pull out all the steps to save the Clean Power Plan, which they say is the most significant U.S. policy to reduce carbon emissions that has ever been put into place.”  http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/354531-epa-to-begin-repealing-obamas-landmark-climate-rule-tuesday 

This is a mashup of “pull out all the stops” (use all the resources at one’s disposal) and “take steps” (take the necessary action to achieve something).  Obviously steps and stops are confused here.  So if the steps are pulled out will the Republican efforts to repeal this policy slide down and disappear?  A big thanks to Barry Eigen, Senior Malaphor Hunter, for spotting this one and sending it in.