Chairman John Mica, R-Florida, said he's frustrated by the nation's continuing high unemployment rate more than two years after the recovery act was passed in February 2009.

"A significant portion of the infrastructure stimulus funding is still not spent," Mica said in remarks issued by his office. "Two years ago, I urged Congress to invest in infrastructure, but I also urged that funding be expedited so that we could get that money out quickly and get people working. ... While funding for infrastructure, appropriately invested, can effectively create jobs, this failed stimulus will go down in history as one of the government's greatest failures."

The committee heard testimony from Calvin Scovel, USDOT inspector general; Arthur Elkins Jr., U.S. Environmental Protection Agency inspector general; Phillip Herr and David Trimble of the Government Accountability Office; and Roy Kienitz, USDOT's undersecretary for policy.

GAO's testimony focused on the need for better data collection.

"Although recipients reported jobs funded, other long-term impacts of recovery act investments in transportation are unknown at this point," Herr, GAO's director of physical infrastructure, said in his written testimony.

GAO heard from a number of state officials that attributing benefits directly to the recovery act can be difficult because many projects draw funding from a number of sources. GAO recommends that the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration decide which types of data and performance measures should be used to determine future economic effects.

Democratic members of the House T&I Committee released a 79-page report Monday describing accomplishments of the recovery act's transportation spending. It calls the recovery act's implementation successful.

"These investments have helped stem the tide of job losses from the worst economic crisis facing the nation since the Great Depression," according to the Democrats' report. "Direct job creation from these projects has resulted in paychecks for thousands of Americans, which in turn prevents the need for those Americans to collect unemployment checks and instead allows them to pay taxes. For example, direct job creation from highway formula projects alone has resulted in payroll expenditures of $2.8 billion."

The Democrats' report, a project list, and state-by-state formula investment tables are available at bit.ly/ARRA050211.

Witness statements from Thursday's hearing and a background memorandum are available at 1.usa.gov/HTIC050411, and a video of the hearing is available at bit.ly/HTIC050411video.