Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada sent a letter to Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo Wednesday night, urging him to hold Elon Musk’s tunneling company, the Boring Company, accountable after firefighters were burned by chemicals in its tunnels and after the company was caught dumping wastewater in Las Vegas manholes.
“This project in Southern Nevada has been riddled with safety and environmental concerns since the start,” wrote Congresswoman Titus, a Democrat, and one of four politicians representing the state of Nevada in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In the letter, which Fortune is first to report, Titus wrote that the way Governor Lombardo’s staff appeared to have handled an OSHA safety investigation into the Boring Company, and its resulting fines, “raises larger questions about whether Southern Nevadans can trust that their health and safety are being protected.”
“This was all done outside of the official process that allows entities to challenge citations made by Nevada OSHA in a manner that safeguards transparency and accountability,” Titus wrote in the letter to the state’s Republican governor. Steve Davis, president of the Boring Company, and Sean Sims, head of Loop safety and security at Boring, were also copied on the letter.
The letter, which extensively cites reporting by Fortune over the past two years, comes shortly after Fortune’s most recent investigation published last week, which revealed that three “willful” citations that had been issued against the Boring Company in May were rescinded a day after Boring Company’s president called a representative from Lombardo’s office.
Nevada OSHA and the agencies that sit above it have maintained that the citations did not meet necessary legal requirements, and were therefore not valid. And OSHA said that the governor’s office frequently fields concerns from businesses in the state. However, Fortune found that the rescinding process itself and the case file’s lack of explanation for their removal went outside OSHA’s operating procedure. A document was also altered in the public record, which raised alarm among Nevada regulators and lawyers in the state, who said what took place was inappropriate. Chris Reilly, the representative from Lombardo’s office who interfaced with Boring Company regarding the citations, told Fortune in its previous story that “no record was edited at the direction of me, the Governor’s Office, DIR, B&I, or any other entity I am aware of,” adding that the “insinuation” that these officers had directed such a deletion was “incorrect.”
In her letter, Titus asked whether Lombardo would cooperate with a public hearing and asked him to commit to make the agreed monthly meetings between Nevada OSHA’s chief administrative officer and the Boring Company public. She also asked for specifics regarding which officials had initially signed off on the citations before they were issued, and who made the decision to rescind the citations against Boring Company, among other requests.
“Please release the final justification document and/or all draft justification documents behind the decision by your Administration to rescind the fine against Boring, including any documents that have been deleted from public records,” the letter requests.
Fortune had reported in its investigation that people within the agency were frightened of examining Boring Company after two staffers who worked on the case had been disciplined. In the letter, Titus asked what actions Lombardo’s office is taking to ensure that safety concerns about its Vegas Loop project were addressed appropriately and what procedures were in place to protect Nevada OSHA staffers with concerns about retaliation.
“The push from Boring executives to build the tunnel quickly without consideration for worker and public safety is clear,” Titus wrote.
Earlier on Wednesday, Nevada’s OSHA issued a lengthy press release titled “Setting the record straight,” reiterating many of the same points it made in Fortune’s previous article and insisting there was no political influence.
Governor Lombardo’s press secretary did not respond to an immediate request for comment for this story.
‘Too many cooks in the kitchen’
In an interview this week, Titus said she found Fortune’s findings to be “horrendous” and said she was concerned for the safety of her constituents. She raised explicit concern about Boring Company being caught dumping wastewater in Las Vegas manholes. “If they’re willing to do that. What other shortcuts are they taking?” she asked.
Until now, Titus, whose district includes Las Vegas, said she hadn’t closely followed the progress of the Las Vegas Loop project, which has been underway since 2019.
“I haven’t been watching it so closely,” she said. “I guess I should have, since I didn’t realize that nobody else was.”
Titus said that, between the Clark County regulators, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the Division of Industrial Relations, Nevada OSHA, and the Governor’s office, there were “too many cooks in the kitchen,” and she recommended more centralized responsibility with the Boring Company project moving forward.
“I think looking at how to streamline that, or just put more responsibility in one place that can be held more accountable, would be a good reform,” she said.
Titus is advocating for more transparency: She said she is pushing for a public hearing on the matter and, in her letter to Lombardo, asked that he open up Nevada OSHA’s meetings with Boring Company to the public.
Titus said that she is contemplating working with someone to file a federal OSHA complaint “if that seems appropriate,” as she openly questioned whether the legislature needed to “take another look” at the power given to the state OSHA plan.
“It’s going to take some guts to stand up to it and demand some changes, but I think people here in Nevada are willing to do that,” she said.
You can read the full letter below:
