At midnight Wednesday, the federal transportation law funding national highway and transit programs expired. Amid a lack of consensus in Congress on what to do—as the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has been at odds with both the Senate and the Obama Administration—the current law was extended for one-month. However, it is a short-term fix.

Every six years the law authorizing national transportation policy and funding needs renewal. The current law expires Sept. 30 -- in nine days.

With Congress back after a summer recess, President Barack Obama, in an address before both the House and Senate on Wednesday, again made clear that the government’s business at this moment is health care reform. As a result, major climate legislation has been delayed twice in the Senate by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif), Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. At the same time, similar legislation in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee -- a $450 billion bill to overhaul transportation funding and policy nationally -- has not been put off, at least by Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (D., Minn.).

Blueprint America -- with NOW on PBS -- in a report with correspondent Miles O'Brien looks at the massive amount of freight moved throughout the country -- by trucks and by trains. But the aging infrastructure they run on needs more investment. Still, in these economic times money is hard to come by -- if the economy is to improve, though, the freight system that moves the country's goods needs to keep moving.

Two years ago, during the Wednesday evening rush hour in Minneapolis on August 1, the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. Have we learned any lessons from this tragedy that help make us safer today? Regrettably, the answer is no.

What do you call a highway program that just keeps going long after its original goals were achieved? A zombie highway. Blueprint America -- with The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer -- goes to Birmingham, Alabama, to look into the Northern Beltline, a road that will cost more than $3 billion, most of which will be paid for by taxpayers nationwide.

An exchange with Phillip Wiedmeyer, a leading advocate for Birmingham's Northern Beltline, about the argument for more highway building in Alabama -- it's a how to on Zombie Higways.

Blueprint America correspondent Rick Karr in a web report from Alabama on the environmental impact of building highways, and the growth they can create.

Blueprint America correspondent Rick Karr revisits a report from earlier this year on the operating budget troubles of mass-transit agencies throughout the country.

In April, before the House transportation bill was introduced, Rep. Jim Oberstar (D., Minn.), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, talked with Blueprint America about the legislation.

As the House version of a new transportation bill to reauthorize and reform the current federal transportation law, which expires at the end of September, remains in the House, the Senate has made two significant moves in the past week to postpone the debate for a new law.