The actual situation revolves around the fact that a few years ago the Utah lege enacted the Transfer of Public Lands Act which required the feds to turn over all the federal lands(and water rights) to Utah.
That deadline date was Jan 1, 2015, which came and went, and the feds didn't turn over the land and water. Now Utah has to decide on how to make the feds turn it over and they are not to keen on using the courts so the only way is in Congress. But that is not likely either.
All of the western states have their individual movements to acquire the federal lands and all these movements link back to ALEC, American Lands Council, Montana Policy Institute, and others. They are all waiting to see what Utah does.
As for the Land and Water Conservation, that was enacted in 1965, but was proposed by Eisenhower, and the first money from the fund was used to develop the Appalachian Trail because Eisenhower was a supporter of the trail.
Eisenhower needed the votes to enact the Submerged Lands Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act so he proposed these funding acts as a way to transfer the offshore royalties to the states. The LWCF was first in the 60s and in the 70s was the Urban Park fund and the Historical Site Preservation fund.
Historically, Congress has been diligent in appropriating the federal portion of these acts but has always dragged their feet on the state portion.
The LWCF is controversial because it requires that 70% of the money to be used for buying land. But sometimes, this LWCF money is granted to individuals on the premise that the individual manage the land in accordance with LWCF. And some people maintain that some of these funds find their way into paying for environmental easements
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