mr. speaker , i appreciate my friend yielding . 
i am very encouraged . 
i serve on the conference committee , so i am very encouraged by the accomplishments and progress that has been made over the course of this week . 
i believe there is really only one major issue left to be resolved by the conferees , and that relates to transit funding . 
hopefully , that can be resolved prior to the wednesday night expiration of the current short-term funding measure , and then , as normal , there are a lot of smaller issues that can be resolved by then . 
i am very hopeful that we can pass that conference report before we leave here next week . 
