Federal regulators are investigating Nevada OSHA after Boring Co. citations were suddenly withdrawn

Nevada OSHA received a complaint about the state agency and opened a federal review into whether Nevada OSHA is at least as effective as the federal agency — a requirement for all state OSHA plans under U.S. law, Nevada OSHA confirmed.

The federal investigation comes about a month later luck published an investigation revealing that Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued three “willful” and serious citations to The Boring Company, the tunneling venture founded by Elon Musk that is digging Tesla’s underground tunnel system beneath Las Vegas and the broader county. Citations were issued to Boring after two firefighters suffered chemical burns in one of its tunnels during a training exercise. Shortly after the citations were issued earlier this year, the president of The Boring Company called a member of Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office and held a meeting with top state officials, and the state agency rescinded those citations within 24 hours. The removal of the citations was not documented in the case file, and the item in the Nevada OSHA case notes describing the meeting was later deleted from the public record, luck Found.

Nevada OSHA and its state agencies have confirmed that OSHA withdrew the citations after the phone call because it determined that the citations did not meet legal requirements and were therefore not valid. Nevada OSHA also said that the governor’s office regularly receives complaints from companies in the state and that this case only stands out “due to the high-profile nature of the company due to its association with Elon Musk.”

However, state attorneys and regulators said the handling of the citations violated standard OSHA procedures, and the incident sparked outrage among some politicians, including Nevada Congresswoman Dina Titus, who sent a letter to Gov. Joe Lombardo urging him to hold Elon Musk’s tunnel company accountable, make the company’s meetings with Nevada OSHA public, and answer a series of questions about how the investigation was handled. A spokeswoman for Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said luck Cortez Masto’s office “is supporting inquiries to ensure The Boring Company adheres to and complies with all OSHA rules.”

It is not clear at this time who filed the complaint that sparked the federal investigation, officially called a “Complaint About State Plan Administration” or “CASPA,” nor when specifically it was filed. The Department of Labor’s Office of Records confirmed that CASPA had been filed against OSHA in Nevada, though it declined to file the complaint because it was “part of an enforcement action” and “could interfere with OSHA’s ability to effectively enforce the law.” Separately, a Labor Department spokeswoman said the federal OSHA does not comment on state plan investigations or decisions.

These types of inquiries typically take less than 60 days to complete, according to OSHA’s policy manual, which details the process. During the investigation, the Regional Office will review the Nevada OSHA case file, and conduct interviews with State Plan officials and employees as well as other individuals involved. The regional office will also review the effectiveness of the State Plan’s policies and procedures, according to the manual. Nevada OSHA itself will have 30 days to respond to CASPA, and the state agency’s decision will be taken into account in the investigation, the evidence shows.

This is not the first time Nevada OSHA has come under scrutiny by the federal OSHA. In 2009, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration began a “special study” into the plan after Las Vegas Sun Report on the agency’s handling of deaths during construction of the CityCenter project on the Las Vegas Strip.

says Jordan Barab, who began that study of OSHA in Nevada during his time leading the federal agency during the Obama administration luck Because of the high-profile nature of this new investigation, senior federal agency leaders have likely been implicated. “This would certainly have drawn the attention of the assistant secretary, and perhaps beyond, given that it involved Elon Musk,” says Parab.

Barab suggested that if the federal OSHA finds deficiencies in Nevada’s plan, the regulator could direct Nevada to make corrections to that specific case or modify the agency’s procedures.

Since the 2009 special study, Parab said Nevada OSHA has “improved its work” and “hired some very competent and responsible people to manage the program.”

In OSHA’s most recent annual report on Nevada’s plan, which was published in 2024 and is publicly available on the regulator’s website, federal OSHA said Nevada’s plan had made notable improvements in workplace culture and employee retention rates — with 95% of positions filled — but criticized the agency’s documentation process, saying documents were missing from its case files.