> “Environmental regulations are, in my view, largely terrible,” he said at an event with the libertarian Cato Institute last year. “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.”
This quote is particularly telling of a billionaire's mindset when the fines are too small to matter.
> particularly telling of a billionaire's mindset when the fines are too small to matter
It’s telling that billionaires are human?
Fines being too small to matter are a phenomenon across the income spectrum. From delivery drivers dancing with New York meter maids to American tourists ignoring overseas traffic rules, the notion that inadequate fines stop deterring and become merely a nuisance is well know.
I mean, this is right out of two books: Abundance, and Why Nothing Works. Both spend maybe 1/3 of their pages detailing the excesses and legalistic nature of env reviews. They are weaponized for political reasons and cause an insane amount of delays. They are put in place for the right reasons, but are too effective at slowing projects down.
This might work if they have to pay for the full cost of cleanup. Unfortunately as we've seen, limited liability means the company declares bankruptcy and the taxpayers are stuck with the bill.
He is right, but also the fines need to be higher, especially for repeated violations.
Ever worked in a company where you need approval from 7 separate teams to land a simple change? Just can't get anything done, no matter how useful. This is a huge problem. People generally do not understand what serialized blocking does to performance.
On the other hand the fines cited in the article seem laughably low. I don't know how much ground water was discharged, and how big of a deal it is, but at certain pricetag even billionaires will say: well, it's cheaper to get a cistern and take that water to a water treatment facility or something.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. Many regulations are terrible and serve as a huge hindrance to innovation, and effectively restrict certain things to only the already-massively-rich entrepreneurs. However, (IMHO) there are a lot of regulations that are important and absolutely should be enforced up front. Finding the right balance is kind of impossible, and I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but even well-intended regulations often just create roadblocks and cement incumbents in a particular space.
Fines that are too small to matter are just called permits after the fact. Hardly the penalty a fine should be, and this is hardly the first time that kind of thing has happened.
Yeah, of course you'd rather pay a fine when your net worth is thousands of times more than most people's, and the fines aren't scaled according to net worth.
You see this from time to time with headlines like "$CORP fined fifty MILLION dollars for ..." And then when you look into the details the fine turns out to be about one week of revenue and the offense resulted in early death for thousands of people over the past five years.
There was a CityNerd video (which you may take or leave in general, but I found the anecdote interesting) in which there appeared to be one vehicle in service on the entire system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPjODKUxV5g
I assume though that they would adjust the capacity depending on time of day and whether there's an event or something going on, to some degree.
When we were in Vegas for Def Con, one of the tube stations was next to one of the Las Vegas Convention Center entrances. I'd occasionally hang out there with friends, and once every half an hour or so, we'd see a lonely Tesla weave through the traffic cone path and disappear into the nethers.
Based purely on my own observations, I'd guesstimate that station sees about 50-75 cars per day.
I just hope there is never a battery fire down there, because there appears to be no evacuation tunnel or safety procedures. I don't think you can even get the car doors open in the tunnel.
More accurately all this so Elon Musk could keep peddling the lie that boreholes and cars are the future of public transit. What’s a little fraud and environmental harm compared to such a lofty goal?
If you’re curious, this is a demo/experiment. The long term goal is tunnels so inexpensive that they can go 30 levels deep, letting us travel within cities at 200kph with no stop signs (even eliminate automobiles from the surface of cities)
This will require considerable progress in tunneling r&d, which is their primary activity
> “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,” regulators wrote in the letter.
The fuck?
"You were driving so fast we gave you a discount on the speeding fine."
The tricky thing about environmental regulations is that they are crafted and utilized by NIMBYs to block any infrastructure development. Even if, on balance, the infrastructure is a net positive.
It's not clear if these violations actually represent a real environmental hazard or are more reflective of NIMBY degrowth sentiment.
I think the big picture here is much more important. If tunneling technology is radically improved, we're going to see massive improvements in urban living, including:
• Cleaner air at street level because vehicle exhaust stays underground and can be filtered, which would have massive health and environmental benefits
• Quieter cities with most traffic noise eliminated
• Cooler temperatures since asphalt and vehicle heat are removed from the surface (urban heat island effect)
• More space for trees, parks, and gardens, improving urban greenery.
• Lower stress levels thanks to quieter, greener surroundings.
• Better physical health from more walkable, pedestrian-friendly spaces.
At this point we all know Musk only did this as part of his general "hyperloop" boondoggle to kill California high speed rail. Why do we have to continue to pretend this was anything other than an idiotic PR stunt?
It's not the boring process. It's the use of concrete curing accelerants producing toxic sludge.
Often, the accelerants would spill into groundwater and mix with concrete and other debris, creating a toxic mix of sludge, sometimes about two-feet deep, that workers would often have to trudge through. The OSHA report cited workers with permanently scarred arms and legs, and one instance in which a worker was hit in the face and seared with the chemical mix. Temperatures would regularly rise to 100 degrees as workers often toiled for 12 hour days, sometimes for six or seven days a week, at a worksite nicknamed “the plantation” by some workers, who spoke to the Nevada safety agency for its report. Workers also claimed having to ask for permission to use the bathroom.
That's the OSHA complaint. The environmental complaint comes from disposing of that sludge.
Sludge removal and treatment is a standard problem in tunneling. Usually, it's pumped out with "trash pumps" that can tolerate rocks and sand. Then it goes through some basic processing - screen out the big rocks, separate water from wet sludge, run the water through a mini sewerage treatment plant on site, squeeze more water out of the sludge, add bentonite as an absorbent to lock up toxics, and truck away the dry sludge.[2]
What it seems The Boring Company has been doing is dumping the wet sludge on a vacant lot in Las Vegas [3] and waiting for the water to run off or evaporate. The vacant lot isn't even out in the desert outside the city; it's in town, and the nearby mall is annoyed.
Reports of water two feet deep in the tunnels means they skimped on pumps and water processing. They're using a TBM, which makes a concrete tube as it digs. Most tunneling operations keep the completed tube dry.
Looks like the regulations are not fit for purpose. Why would companies ever improve if its cheaper to just ignore the regulations and pay the tepid fines?
> Leffel questioned whether a $250,000 penalty would be significant enough to change operations at The Boring Co., which was valued at $7 billion in 2023. Studies show that fines that don’t put a significant dent in a company’s profit don’t deter companies from future violations, Leffel said.
A 250k penalty? Get real. Leffel said it like it is. What a sham.
34 comments
[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 53.3 ms ] threadThis quote is particularly telling of a billionaire's mindset when the fines are too small to matter.
It’s telling that billionaires are human?
Fines being too small to matter are a phenomenon across the income spectrum. From delivery drivers dancing with New York meter maids to American tourists ignoring overseas traffic rules, the notion that inadequate fines stop deterring and become merely a nuisance is well know.
Ever worked in a company where you need approval from 7 separate teams to land a simple change? Just can't get anything done, no matter how useful. This is a huge problem. People generally do not understand what serialized blocking does to performance.
On the other hand the fines cited in the article seem laughably low. I don't know how much ground water was discharged, and how big of a deal it is, but at certain pricetag even billionaires will say: well, it's cheaper to get a cistern and take that water to a water treatment facility or something.
You see this from time to time with headlines like "$CORP fined fifty MILLION dollars for ..." And then when you look into the details the fine turns out to be about one week of revenue and the offense resulted in early death for thousands of people over the past five years.
Tens of thousands of riders when I was there and not a spec of dirt. Very far from perfect, but a long way from useless.
I assume though that they would adjust the capacity depending on time of day and whether there's an event or something going on, to some degree.
Based purely on my own observations, I'd guesstimate that station sees about 50-75 cars per day.
This will require considerable progress in tunneling r&d, which is their primary activity
it's always privatize the profits, socialize the costs
he's doing the same thing with Starlink which is going to vaporize many thousands of toxic satellites out of LEO into the atmosphere
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit...
imagine what he's going to do on the Moon or Mars
The fuck?
"You were driving so fast we gave you a discount on the speeding fine."
It's not clear if these violations actually represent a real environmental hazard or are more reflective of NIMBY degrowth sentiment.
• Cleaner air at street level because vehicle exhaust stays underground and can be filtered, which would have massive health and environmental benefits
• Quieter cities with most traffic noise eliminated
• Cooler temperatures since asphalt and vehicle heat are removed from the surface (urban heat island effect)
• More space for trees, parks, and gardens, improving urban greenery.
• Lower stress levels thanks to quieter, greener surroundings.
• Better physical health from more walkable, pedestrian-friendly spaces.
https://www.ktnv.com/news/workers-allege-chemical-burns-from...
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/california-dismantles-landmark-e...
It's not the boring process. It's the use of concrete curing accelerants producing toxic sludge.
Often, the accelerants would spill into groundwater and mix with concrete and other debris, creating a toxic mix of sludge, sometimes about two-feet deep, that workers would often have to trudge through. The OSHA report cited workers with permanently scarred arms and legs, and one instance in which a worker was hit in the face and seared with the chemical mix. Temperatures would regularly rise to 100 degrees as workers often toiled for 12 hour days, sometimes for six or seven days a week, at a worksite nicknamed “the plantation” by some workers, who spoke to the Nevada safety agency for its report. Workers also claimed having to ask for permission to use the bathroom.
That's the OSHA complaint. The environmental complaint comes from disposing of that sludge.
Sludge removal and treatment is a standard problem in tunneling. Usually, it's pumped out with "trash pumps" that can tolerate rocks and sand. Then it goes through some basic processing - screen out the big rocks, separate water from wet sludge, run the water through a mini sewerage treatment plant on site, squeeze more water out of the sludge, add bentonite as an absorbent to lock up toxics, and truck away the dry sludge.[2]
What it seems The Boring Company has been doing is dumping the wet sludge on a vacant lot in Las Vegas [3] and waiting for the water to run off or evaporate. The vacant lot isn't even out in the desert outside the city; it's in town, and the nearby mall is annoyed.
Reports of water two feet deep in the tunnels means they skimped on pumps and water processing. They're using a TBM, which makes a concrete tube as it digs. Most tunneling operations keep the completed tube dry.
[1] https://www.inc.com/sam-blum/elon-musks-boring-company-subje...
[2] https://www.blackrhinosep.com/application/tunneling-slurry-s...
[3] https://lasvegas.citycast.fm/explainers/boring-company-drill...
But oh poor Musk (being the richest in the world) has to have his fine reduced.
Fine you say? Cool. That tells everyone that this is just a payment to continue as normal and to include this extra fee.
And that if this crime is a fine, then its only for the lower class.
A 250k penalty? Get real. Leffel said it like it is. What a sham.