A House panel hit a snag in the sale of Conrail.

Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are writing a bill to sell Consolidated Rail Corp. in hopes that it can be approved by Congress before next month’s adjournment, aides said. But some committee members are maneuvering to tack onto the bill a series of amendments not specifically tied to the Conrail sale issue, a tactic that has prompted a warning from Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole. “We cannot start adding such unjustified matters without precipitating an avalanche of extraneous provisions that will bury the sale itself,” Dole said in a letter to Rep. Norman Lent (R-N.Y.).