of the Jill-titan ?tatea 43? 213515 June 26, 2018 Secretary Elaine Chao Department of Tran3portation 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE Washington, DC. 20590 Secretary Chao, The Department of Transportation has previously approved nearly $1.2 billion in federal grants to the city of Los Angeles to extend the Purple Line within the city. This includes a section of the Purple Line that would be routed directly beneath Beverly Hills High School only public high school in Beverly Hills. Despite the best efforts of the Beverly Hills Uni?ed School District (School District) to work with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) on alternative subway routes to protect the health and safety of students, Metro has moved ahead with construction. Decisions made by Metro have shown that they place the well-being of the students and the BHHS community below their determination to ?nish construction, especially when there are several acceptable alternate routes available that would extend the Purple Line. And, as part of construction, Metro has located construction staging areas directly adjacent to BHHS. These staging areas will generate harmful levels of airborne toxins, noise, and vibration, and pose a substantial health risk to the students, faculty, staff, and broader community using the High School facilities. As soon as Metro begins construction on the staging areas, toxic emissions such as diesel particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and ?ne particulate matter will start and continue once construction begins, subsurface boring activities may also cause the release of methane and toxic gases into the air since there are between 70-80 abandoned oil wells in that area, which raises the possibility of methane explosions. These airborne toxins can cause or contribute to severe health problems, ranging from short-term effects such as coughing, dizziness, nausea, and headaches, to long-term effects, such as cancer, chronic asthma, and other respiratory illnesses. And, should there be an incident where the tunneling machine has a subsurface accident, there is no other land in Beverly Hills to move the only public high school. We, the undersigned Members of Congress, are requesting a meeting with you to address our concerns about approval and oversight of how federal funds are being used. It is not the intent of Congress to have DOT approve grant funding for projects that would have such negative impacts on the educational needs of our communities, and we would like to hear how DOT will remedy the concerns raised by local community members. PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER If you have any further questions, please contact myself or Parker Reynolds in my of?ce at Thank you very much and we look forward to your Sinc Todd Rokita Member of Congress Chairman, Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Ken Calvert Member of Congress Mimi Walters Member of Congress Steve Km Member of Congress Dag/L Dana Rohrabacher. Member of Congress