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 .  