Federal Control of State Lands

The Washington Times says that the state of Utah plans to take over from the federal government 31.2 million acres of Utah land now under federal government control. Before you get excited, this does not include national parks and national monuments, such as Arches, Bryce, and Zion.
Utah's land size is 54.3 million acres and the federal government controls more than half of it.
The federal government controls more than 50 percent of all land west of Kansas — in Utah’s case, it’s 64.5 percent. This means that this large amount of land is unavailable for private ownership and development.
Utah state officials will proceed with a program of education, negotiation, legislation and litigation. It will not involve use of military or police force.
This will also hopefully serve as a model for other Western states to similarly join in reducing federal control of state lands.
It should be noted that moving federal control of land to state control will not automatically make land available to the public for private development, but it is at least a step in the right direction of reducing the onerous controls of the federal government departments, such as the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service.
Let's remember that is the intended passage of the Keystone pipeline through federal government controlled lands that has held up the construction of this pipeline for the last several years.