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As Nevada regulators continue to investigate safety episodes that have occurred in the tunnels Boring Company is digging below Las Vegas, two Nevada legislators have written a letter to Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, demanding a \u201ccomprehensive plan\u201d to address concerns of \u201cstructural failures\u201d in the state\u2019s oversight of Elon Musk\u2019s tunneling startup.<\/p>\n
The letter, which was shown to Fortune, described \u201csignificant concerns about record integrity, administrative accountability, and structural failures within Nevada\u2019s workplace safety system,\u201d and said that \u201cthese issues remain unresolved and require clear action from the Executive Branch.\u201d\u00a0 The letter was sent to the Governor\u2019s Chief of Staff, Ryan Cherry, on Wednesday morning. Assemblymember Howard Watts and Senator Rochelle Nguyen, two Democrats who lead the state\u2019s Assembly Committee on Growth and Infrastructure, signed and sent the letter.<\/p>\n
The letter demanded that Gov.Lombardo and his administration conduct an independent review of an incident revealed by Fortune in which a public record had been altered that was part of an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigation, and commit to making those findings publicly available. The legislators describe the act of altering or concealing public records in the letter as a \u201cserious matter that may constitute a violation of Nevada law and potentially rise to the level of a Class C felony.\u201d The letter also demanded a plan to address year-long backlogs in OSHA cases waiting to be heard by the OSHA Review Board, a Governor-appointed body that hears safety cases employers have contested with Nevada OSHA.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuestions surrounding withdrawn citations, altered records, and delays in adjudication have created the perception that Nevada\u2019s enforcement system is not operating independently or transparently,\u201d the letter reads, pointing out that \u201cthere still remain a number of unanswered questions and outstanding issues regarding The Boring Company and the health and safety of Nevada workers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The demand letter follows a legislative hearing in early February, in which state officials testified before Nevada legislators about their oversight of the Boring Company. Representatives from Boring Company and the Governor\u2019s Office declined to attend the hearing. Boring Company, which was founded and is owned by Elon Musk, has been digging an underground public transportation system of ride-hail Tesla vehicles that is intended to eventually go below the entire city of Las Vegas. While its tunneling to date has taken place in the broader County, the company recently received approvals to start digging below the City of Las Vegas proper.<\/p>\n
Projects riddled with safety issues<\/p>\n
Since construction began, the project has been riddled with safety issues, including employees getting burned by chemicals in the tunnels, employees digging too close to the Las Vegas monorail, a worker getting crushed and another getting shocked, and illegal wastewater dumping\u2014much of which was first reported by Fortune. KTNV, an ABC affiliate television station in Las Vegas, recently reported that OSHA had completed its investigation regarding the employee who had been shocked, and found that the injured employee had been fired for allegedly demonstrating a \u201ca serious lapse in judgement on more than one occasion,\u201d according to the Boring Company.<\/p>\n
There are at least three more pending investigations that are still outstanding, according to OSHA\u2019s website, and Boring Company is currently contesting eight citations it was issued regarding chemical burns in 2024. The Review Board has repeatedly pushed back the hearing on those citations, including most recently in February because Boring Company\u2019s lawyer had a conflict, OSHA officials have said.<\/p>\n
The latest injury, the one involving the employee who was shocked, \u201cjust points to the fact that we need to ensure that our OSHA process is functioning properly\u2014to hold this and other companies accountable, to provide a safe working environment for people in our community,\u201d Assemblymember Watts said in an interview with Fortune. He pointed out that \u201cthese tremendous backlogs\u201d are allowing companies to contest citations for over a year and delay addressing the underlying problems.<\/p>\n
In November, a Fortune investigation found that OSHA had issued three citations against the Boring Company after firefighters were burned by chemicals in the tunnels, then withdrew them within 24 hours after Boring Company president Steve Davis reached out to a representative in the Governor\u2019s Office. Federal OSHA, which oversees the state plan, later received a complaint about the matter and opened a federal investigation, which ultimately determined that the allegations were substantiated, and that case file documentation was altered, missing, \u201cand\/or removed\u201d from the case file and that the citations had been withdrawn after issuance. Federal OSHA said in its findings that it believed Nevada OSHA \u201chad reasonable justification to withdraw the issued willful citations\u201d and that the legal elements needed to support the \u201cwillful\u201d designation had not been met.<\/p>\n
Governor Lombardo recently said in an interview with staff at the Nevada Independent that his office had tried to determine who had deleted a line item in the document in the OSHA file, but that the inquiry had apparently been thwarted by a cyberattack against the state that took place several months beforehand in August.<\/p>\n
In that recent interview, Governor Lombardo said that \u201cin the long run,\u201d he believed Boring Company would be \u201cvery beneficial\u201d to Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo I like them in their tactics and how they do business? No,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The legislators\u2019 letter demanded that Governor Lombardo\u2019s administration submit a written plan that would \u201cdetail concrete actions, responsible officials, and implementation timelines\u201d to start the independent investigation and address safety case backlogs by April 17.<\/p>\n
The Governor\u2019s Office did not respond to an immediate request for comment.<\/p>\n
#Exclusive #Nevada #legislators #press #Governor #Lombardo #Boring #safety #oversight #demanding #plan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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