The U.S. Supreme Court blew off the Great State of Utah this week. Utah had filed a lawsuit claiming that it was unconstitutional for the feds to retain ownership of the federal land in Utah.  The reasoning was a little hard to follow, but was basically that the Constitution says the government has the authority to “dispose” of public lands. It doesn’t say anything about keeping them for unspecified purposes.  The issue is BLM property, which is the land that nobody wanted during the 150 years they were giving it away under the Homestead Act. It’s the scraps left over after all the homesteading, national forests and national parks, military bases and Indian reservations.  Those set asides were all done by legislation. The theory was that nobody set aside the scraps for any specific purpose, so they have to dispose of it. Or at least let people drive their OHVs over archeological sites.Utah argues that disposing of it means giving it to the state. I suppose it could also mean they could sell it to Elon Musk. The government countered by saying that the BLM land was set aside for designated purposes in the laws creating BLM and repealing the Homestead Act. It is one of those weird situations in which the lawsuit actually starts at the Supreme Court. But it’s also one of those cases that they aren’t obligated to hear. So last week, the High Court just said, “We don’t care about this stuff” and tossed it out, though Justice Alito was overheard asking, “Where exactly is Utah?”According to news reports, the state spent about a half million in legal fees chasing down this rabbit hole. They also spent $2.5 million on a propaganda campaign in support of their position. You probably saw the ads running last fall before the election really got going — happy families doing happy, usually motorized, things on BLM land. The ads didn’t show coal mines, oil rigs and some of the less attractive things that Utah has in mind if it gets its mitts on the federal land.  I never understood the campaign. We don’t get to vote on whether the Supreme Court hears the case. They might have been better off buying Justice Thomas a new RV.I doubt this is over. Taking over the federal land is a hot button issue in some quarters. The Legislature starts its annual session soon, and you can bet this will be front and center.  Their agenda seems to be hell bent on environmental damage. They want to take over the worn out coal-fired power plants in Millard County, which the California utilities are abandoning and replacing with natural gas. But there’s still coal in the (federal) ground, so the Legislature seems to think we need to burn it and put it into the air.There is another PR pitch going on from a group called Demand More Supply.  I can’t tell if that is funded by the state, but it kind of feels like it. This entity is arguing that we need to build a lot more housing in the state — Cox’s target is 20,000 units — and to keep it affordable and slam it into place quickly, they need to get rid of those pesky local governments.  I’ve heard it called an anti-NIMBY agenda, making it harder for communities to block higher densities and mixing affordable housing in their neighborhoods. That’s not all bad. There’s no question that local government can make the process completely unreasonable, and Park City and Summit County are kind of the poster children for that.  But the Legislature — which is dominated by builders, developers, and Realtors — is determined to take it to the other extreme. Nobody seems willing to consider that maybe we have exactly enough houses, we just have too many people. An unsustainable growth rate doesn’t become sustainable by growing more.Gov. Cox and the Legislature are enthusiastically behind Trump’s mass deportation plan. It will be interesting to see them balance their desire for unlimited construction at the same time they are deporting a whole lot of construction workers. The new houses apparently won’t have roofs. I don’t trust the Legislature. Lately, their thing has been special taxing districts controlled by the state that simply oust the local jurisdiction from control. MIDA is the grossest example, but there are inland ports, the old prison site, the proposed baseball park in Salt Lake (which doesn’t yet have a Major League team, and maybe doesn’t have an audience), the public funding of the privately owned Delta Center hockey conversion. Even though the county approved a deal with Dakota Pacific, I suspect they will be at the Legislature saying, “We spent five years with those yokels in Summit County and this is all we got.” And then the state steps in and creates a special son-of-MIDA, Olympic Park taxing district under state control to give them anything they ask for. And while the state is passing out magic financing, Alterra would be smart to designate two or three parking stalls next to the Range Rovers at Snow Park for M1A2 Abrams tanks. That’s enough of a military tie-in to fold the whole thing into MIDA — your one-stop shop for all your government approvals and financing needs.Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.The post More Dogs on Main: Buckle up, the Legislature is going into session appeared first on Park Record.