{"id":18891,"date":"2026-02-05T03:12:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T03:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=18891"},"modified":"2026-02-05T03:12:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T03:12:41","slug":"key-nevada-legislator-says-lawmakers-will-push-for-independent-audit-of-altered-public-record-in-nevada-oshas-boring-company-inspection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=18891","title":{"rendered":"Key Nevada legislator says lawmakers will push for independent audit of altered public record in Nevada OSHA\u2019s Boring Company inspection\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nevada Assemblymember Howard Watts said in an interview that the legislative committee he chairs will \u201cabsolutely\u201d look into pursuing an independent audit into who was responsible for altering a key public record after a Nevada OSHA inspection of Elon Musk-owned Boring Company.<\/p>\n

Fortune<\/em> reported in November that a document in Nevada OSHA\u2019s inspection file was altered after the agency withdrew citations it had issued to the Boring Company in relation to a safety incident at one of the company\u2019s tunneling sites. The matter was an area of questioning in a hearing on Tuesday, where state environment and safety regulators testified before the Nevada Legislature\u2019s Interim Standing Committee on Growth and Infrastructure. A senior safety official acknowledged at the hearing that the document was altered, but said the agency had been unable to determine who had changed it.<\/p>\n

In an interview after the hearing, Watts, a Democrat who chairs the committee, told Fortune<\/em> that the Committee would look into options to pursue an independent audit and understand what happened to the altered record. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it would be in the best interest of transparency and accountability to have a third party do their own forensic audit,\u201d Watts told Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Nevada OSHA, as well as the state government departments that sit above it, have come under scrutiny after Fortune<\/em>\u2019s investigation into the citations issue. Several people with deep expertise on Nevada OSHA\u2019s process and rules have described what happened as a complete departure from OSHA procedure and as inappropriate. Federal OSHA is currently conducting an investigation into Nevada OSHA over its handling of the case.<\/p>\n

The original record described a meeting that had taken place between a representative from Governor Joe Lombardo\u2019s office, senior state safety regulators, and the Boring Company within 24 hours of Boring Company being issued two serious and willful citations following an incident in which firefighters were burned by chemicals in a tunnel during a safety drill. Boring Company\u2019s president, Steve Davis, had called the Governor\u2019s Office about the citations and set up that meeting, and the citations were rescinded at the onset of the meeting. Sometime after this meeting took place, a line item that had described this meeting in a public record was deleted from that document.<\/p>\n

During Tuesday’s hearing, state Sen. Rochelle Nguyen, a Democrat, pressed senior safety regulators over the document being altered, and underscored that altering, removing, or concealing information in a public record was a serious and potentially criminal offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of my constituents that are very involved in transparency and public records are obviously going to be very concerned about how public records are potentially altered or go missing\u2014and whether or not that’s prevalent throughout this agency or throughout the state,\u201d Nguyen said.<\/p>\n

Kristopher Sanchez, the director of the Department of Business and Industry, which sits above Nevada OSHA, said at the hearing that he personally requested that the Governor\u2019s Technology Office do a forensic analysis on the record and said that his agency had also conducted one, but that those reviews \u201cdid not yield any results\u201d and that they do not know \u201chow that happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

When pressed, Sanchez specified that B&I and the Governor\u2019s Office did not bring in a third-party investigator. He said his agency had not filed a criminal complaint or police report, as they were unable to identify who had altered the record. Sanchez said he did not have any kind of documentation, report, or memo regarding the forensic analysis and the methodology used.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are outside of our agency,\u201d Sanchez said of the Governor\u2019s Technology Office. \u201cThey’re impartial, and they are able to do those investigations. So I would have to defer to what they have and how they set that methodology and the tools in which they use to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Governor\u2019s Office declined to attend the hearing, according to a letter sent by Governor Joe Lombardo\u2019s chief of staff, and thus did not respond to questions about it at the meeting. A representative from the Governor\u2019s Office previously told Fortune<\/em> in a statement that \u201cno record was edited at the direction of me, the Governor\u2019s Office, DIR, B&I, or any other entity I am aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the interview after the hearing, Chair Watts said OSHA has been transparent about the forensic analysis, but questioned whether the reviews that had taken place were sufficient.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard that there was not a third-party forensic investigation\u2026 So while we heard a commitment of looking into it and holding whoever was involved accountable, the people who looked into it were the Governor’s Office and Director Sanchez’s IT department,\u201d Watts said. He added: \u201cIt is absolutely something that we’re going to be seeing how we can move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com<\/p>\n

#Key #Nevada #legislator #lawmakers #push #independent #audit #altered #public #record #Nevada #OSHAs #Boring #Company #inspection<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nevada Assemblymember Howard W… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[11812,8992,4117,596,554,4409,7736,479,1331,11811,11654,11813,2018,412,314,4024,1571],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}