1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Advancing Conservation and Education Act . 2. Findings Congress finds that— (1) at statehood, Congress granted each of the western States land to be held in trust by the States and used for the support of public schools and other public institutions; (2) since the statehood land grants, Congress and the executive branch have created multiple Federal conservation areas on Federal land within the western States, including National Parks, National Monuments, national conservation areas, national grassland, components of the National Wilderness Preservation System, wilderness study areas, and national wildlife refuges; (3) since statehood land grant land owned by the western States are typically scattered across the public land, creation of Federal conservation areas often include State land grant parcels with substantially different management mandates, making land and resource management more difficult, expensive, and controversial for both Federal land managers and the western States; and (4) allowing the western States to relinquish State trust land within Federal conservation areas and to select replacement land from the public land within the respective western States, would— (A) enhance management of Federal conservation areas by allowing unified management of those areas; and (B) increase revenue from the statehood land grants for the support of public schools and other worthy public purposes. 3. Definitions In this Act: (1) Application The term application means an application for State relinquishment and selection of land made under this Act in accordance with section 5. (2) Eligible area The term eligible area means land within the outer boundary of— (A) a unit of the National Park System; (B) a component of the National Wilderness Preservation System; (C) a unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System; (D) a unit of the National Landscape Conservation System