Question: The Federal Government has been closed now for 2 days, probably about to be closed for another 2 days because of this storm. It costs about $100 million every time the Federal Government closes. What do you think about that? I know that there are going to be a lot of people outside of Washington who think Federal workers, you know, they get these nice cushy days off whenever the weather gets bad. What do you say to the folks like that?

Mr. Hoyer. This isn't a storm of 1 or 2 inches. The problem is not so much when you get out to a main road moving in and out. The problem is getting out. It is not -- as a matter of fact I live in a rural area. I have a driveway that is a little over a thousand feet along and I have a wonderful guy named Ernest Morgan who lives across the street from me who is a farmer. And he has a wonderful tractor with a blade on the front and a blade on the back and he really takes care of me.

Everybody doesn't have that. And nobody is parked on my driveway. So he gets in and out and it takes him 15 or 20 minutes to do that. If you will talk to me after the (press conference), I'll get a whole itinerary of what Ernest can do for all of you at a reasonable price, I'm sure. We have a number of avenues now that he is going to be on.

You know, as I said, this is a historic -- this is not a a little storm. This is not just deciding that oh, gee there is a little bit of slippery weather out there. It is a major -- if you are just driving down the secondary streets here, there may be a lane, but some cars are buried.

Some cars have dug themselves out and having trouble getting back into parking. It is a hellacious challenge for municipal -- for anybody who is charged with the responsibility of clearing these roads.

I think they have done an excellent job in southern Maryland on the main roads. I think they have done a decent job -- one of the problems the further north you get the more traffic you get and the more difficult it is and you get more snow. So yes, it is costly. I think probably John Berry (a former Hoyer aide who runs the U.S. Office of Personnel Management) made the correct decision in terms of safety.

You know traffic, this is the second worst traffic in the United States here. And you can imagine when it rains we have a tough time because people slow down and they are worried about skidding and stuff like that. And that's when all the lanes are open.

Now in many of these areas you have one lane where there were three or two lanes where there were four or maybe three, it is a real challenge. It is easy to second guess people.

Schools are obviously closed down because they are very concerned about safety of kids getting on buses and getting to the buses. But pretty soon, everybody is going to be stir crazy and they are going to be -- maybe they are now.

Q I've got to ask --

Mr. Hoyer. You had a question.

Q Why can't we sleigh ride down the Hill in back of the Capitol? The cops came out there and stopped the sledders in the back of the Capitol. We have always been able to sleigh ride.

Mr. Hoyer. I don't know the answer to that question. I know there was a resolution to use the Hill for the soap box derby. But who knows?