Italy's Environment Minister Mr Willer Bordon has offered his resignation just 10 days before the general election following a row which saw him threaten to pull the plug on Vatican Radio.
The row, over how to deal with Vatican Radio's excessive electromagnetic levels has split the cabinet in the past weeks.
Residents near the station's forest of antennae north of Rome say the electromagnetic radiation, dubbed electrosmog, has caused a high incidence of leukaemia.
The Italian newsagency ANSA said Mr Bordon had sent a letter of resignation to Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, but no-one at the Environment Ministry was available to confirm the report.
Mr Bordon had told Vatican Radio to get its electromagnetic levels - which he said were up to three times over Italian legal limits - in line with the law and ordered its electricity supply to be cut off if it did not conform.
His order was suspended by Mr Amato in mid-April.
On Wednesday, the cabinet met again to discuss the Vatican Radio case, but when Mr Bordon came out he dismissed the government's response as utterly unsatisfactory.
Yesterday, he had what he called a polite telephone conversation with Mr Amato and wrote a letter again asking for concrete action against the radio station.
"Either something new happens today or I will wave everyone goodbye," he said.
Mr Amato, on the election campaign trail in the southern region of Puglia, declined to answer reporters' questions about the resignation letter.
Officials at the Vatican Radio, which is on land owned by the Holy See rather than Italy, have said they are seeking ways of reducing the levels and have already cut about 50 percent of its medium wave (AM) transmissions.