Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 332 posts

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#21

Post by eddieroger »

maxeda wrote: post #2

> “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.

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.

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#22

Post by 3D30497420 »

freedomben wrote: post #14
maxeda wrote: post #2

> “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.

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,…

In some cases you are correct, however the happy middle in this case probably does not include many (most?) of their violations. One particular example:

> Workers have complained of chemical burns from the waste material generated by the tunneling process, and firefighters must decontaminate their equipment after conducting rescues from the project sites. The company was fined more than $112,000 by Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late 2023 after workers complained of “ankle-deep” water in the tunnels, muck spills and burns.

In another part, the company is accused of dumping this water directly into streets (presumably without decontamination).

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#23

Post by skopje »

freedomben wrote: post #14
maxeda wrote: post #2

> “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.

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,…

>> >Many regulations are terrible and serve as a huge hindrance to innovation

What is an example of a regulation that was a "huge" hinderance to innovation?

Looking at the past 40 years of the US technological progress and the only thing I seen hindering innovation are the tech companies themselves through monopoly, monopsony, patents, and regulatory capture. (Unless the last one is what you meant, but that's a regulation put in place by a monopoly to maintain its monopoloy and not to protect the air we breathe).

EDIT: I am referring to "innovation" not "execution".

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#24

Post by terminalshort »

maxeda wrote: post #2

> “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.

He's completely correct about that.

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#25

Post by 3D30497420 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #19

> “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."

It is even worse! "We've caught you speeding so many times that we're giving you a bulk discount."

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#26

Post by miltonlost »

ceejayoz wrote: post #19

> “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."

"You did too much crime. Therefore, we will charge you for fewer crimes! Bulk discount!"

This is ridiculous and why we have the problems with late-stage capitalism that we do. Fines are not high enough. No jail time for environmental crimes.

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#27

Post by lucianbr »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4
maxeda wrote: post #2

> “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.

Yeah, imho lots of people need reminding that billionaires are just regular joes with a very large bank account. With all the regular joe's faults.

Would be useful to remember that if Musk or Bezos say something, it may have the same chance of being right as what a delivery driver would say.

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#28

Post by ceejayoz »

Larrikin wrote: post #17
add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst thing about space exploration is that it's not fun and optimistic like it was before this specific 2020s phase of capitalism, the best thing is that this crop of billionaires will all be dead before the real cool future stuff could happen anyway.

Xi and Putin were caught on a hot mic talking about swapping out their organs with fresh ones. I assume from their local political enemies.

This is getting downvoted, probably because it sounds like a loony conspiracy theory... but it isn't. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/hot-mic-picks...

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#29

Post by terminalshort »

fl0id wrote: post #10
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

it's telling that he only sees effectiveness in what he wants. these rules are there for environmental protection, and in a worst case scenario, a fine is not gonna bring back the clean soil, or whatever was done.

The clean soil in downtown Las Vegas?
Post reply on HN