WASHINGTON — A 40,000-acre land swap aimed at helping Utah students and preserving government land has resurfaced in the Senate.

The same bill passed the House last year but time ran out before it could get through the Senate, so Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch, both R-Utah, reintroduced it Thursday.

The Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2007 trades about 40,000 acres of land managed by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration. The land is located near the Colorado River in Uintah and Grand counties. Under the bill, it would be swapped for 40,000 acres of federal land believed to have more economic potential for the trust.

"We see this exchange as a win-win solution for the state of Utah and its school children, as well as for the Department of the Interior, the caretaker of our public lands," Bennett said.

Bennett said the equal exchange will give "taxpayers and the schoolchildren of Utah a fair deal," and the bill creates a "common-sense valuation process for resources that are often either overlooked or overvalued because of their highly-speculative nature."

The Interior Department supported the bill at a hearing last year, and the environmental group Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance also supports it.

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