Repeal and Disband MIDA Now

Repeal MIDA. This agency has grown from a narrow 2007 mandate to facilitate military land development into a statewide bulldozer that bypasses local ordinances, land-use protections, and constituent input entirely. This spring, MIDA approved a 40,000-acre data center and natural gas plant on private ranchland in Box Elder County — not military land — with no meaningful public process. That is not what this agency was created to do. Under Utah Code 63H-1-202, MIDA is exempt from the health, zoning, and land-use rules that protect every other community in this state. Its sub-districts can seize private property and groundwater through eminent domain. It hires and pays its own private auditor, locking out the State Auditor entirely — a self-grading system that MIDA's own brochure calls "extreme oversight." State Auditor Tina Cannon has confirmed her office has zero control over that arrangement. Thousands of Utahns have already contacted her office demanding accountability. MIDA's own project plan describes this as a "replicable model." That should alarm every legislator in this building. Vote to repeal MIDA and restore the democratic oversight that Utahns deserve over decisions affecting their land, water, and communities.