Blueprint America -- with The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer -- in a two part report looks at the bottlenecks of America's freight rail network, and the communities the trains intersect.

Blueprint America correspondent Rick Karr interviews Edward Hamberger, President and CEO of the Association of American Railroads (AAR), about the state of freight rail in America today, as well as its future. The AAR represents the interests of the major freight railroads in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and Amtrak.

This is our year. Infrastructure is no longer just a word thrown about by policy wonks and engineers. The public, and more importantly politicians, have made public works, especially transportation, a front and center issue.

With carbon emissions caps on the Obama Administration's agenda, coal is at the center of the energy debate. NOW's Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa goes to Wyoming to report on the state's coal industry, and its assertion that it can produce "clean coal" -- coal that can be burned without releasing carbon into the atmosphere.