Regulators have hit Elon Musk's The Boring Company with fines for almost 800 different environmental violations they said have taken place as part of the company's Las Vegas tunneling project, ProPublica reported.
What's happening?
The Boring Company has been hired to dig 68 miles of tunnels in the Las Vegas area, as officials and tourist-industry groups have sought to create subterranean alternatives to the area's congested roadways.
For years, the project has been plagued by allegations of both environmental and worker-safety violations. On September 22, the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection wrote a cease-and-desist letter to The Boring Company accusing the Musk-led endeavor of violating a 2022 settlement agreement.
Among other things, the state government alleged that Boring has repeatedly and improperly dumped wastewater into storm drains and onto roadways, per the letter.
Though the state could have imposed over $3 million in penalties for the alleged violations, regulators used their discretion to lower the amount to just $242,800, according to ProPublica.
"Given the extraordinary number of violations, NDEP has decided to exercise its discretion to reduce the penalty to two $5,000 violations per permit, which it believes offers a reasonable penalty that will still serve to deter future non-compliance conduct," the letter stated.
Despite a lengthy record of overpromising and underdelivering, in 2023, The Boring Company was valued at roughly $7 billion, Reuters reported at the time.
Musk, whom Forbes ranks as the world's richest person, has previously voiced his disdain for environmental regulations and his preference for paying fines rather than obtaining the appropriate permission prior to acting.
"Environmental regulations are, in my view, largely terrible," Musk said at a Cato Institute event in 2024, per ProPublica. "You have to get permission in advance, as opposed to, say, paying a penalty if you do something wrong, which I think would be much more effective."
In addition to the alleged environmental violations, regulators also have imposed fines on The Boring Company for problems relating to worker safety. Workers have complained of chemical burns, working in ankle-deep water, and other unsafe conditions, leading to a prior $112,000 fine, ProPublica reported.
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Critics have said that The Boring Company's apparent flaunting of environmental and worker protections have placed both the public and the company's own workers at risk.
Ben Leffel, an assistant public policy professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that he found authorities' efforts to hold the company accountable and to deter Boring from further violations to be ineffective.
"Not if they're recommitting almost the exact violation," he said, per ProPublica.
Studies have shown that, for fines to be an effective deterrent against violations of environmental regulations, they must be large enough to significantly impact a company's profits.
If fines are not substantial enough, companies can find it profitable to violate environmental rules aimed at protecting the public, Nathan Atkinson, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, found in a 2023 study published in the Yale Journal on Regulation.
What's being done about it?
In order to deter companies and wealthy individuals from engaging in a strategy of "asking for forgiveness rather than permission" when it comes to environmental and worker-safety rules, regulators must hold bad actors accountable with punishments sizable enough to make an impact. Otherwise, unscrupulous individuals and organizations will simply regard such penalties as a cost of doing business.
To push for stricter enforcement of regulations aimed at protecting workers, the public, and the environment, you can use your voice, contact your elected representatives, and vote for candidates who share your policy priorities.
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