Mike Siaperas, a wealthy software executive, was looking for a change. He found it 10,000 feet above sea level in Utah, buying a ranch that he would turn into a luxury hunting retreat… Since 2019, state lawmakers have appropriated more than $5 million to support Mr. Siaperas’s forestry work, although less than half of it has been paid out. His proposals have been backed by influential allies, met with little to no competition and relied on unproven or disputed scientific claims. The funding is part of a pattern of questionable contracts the state — led by a Republican governor and a legislature with a Republican supermajority — has awarded over the last decade to politically connected people pushing moneymaking projects they claimed had ecological benefits.