DENVER — The conservative political movement that has rallied behind the cry of states’ rights in recent years on fronts including immigration and health care is now focusing its energies on a much older question in the American West: public lands.

On Friday, Gov. Gary R. Herbert of Utah, a Republican, signed into law House Bill 148. It asks the federal government, which owns a majority of the land in the state, to give back more than 20 million acres. A similar measure, passed by the Arizona Senate last month, is awaiting further action in the Capitol in Phoenix. Bills patterned after Utah’s are being prepared for filing next year in Colorado, Idaho, Montana and New Mexico, lawmakers involved in the effort said.

Utah is also preparing lawsuits, for filing as early as next month, to reclaim thousands of sections of road that cross federal lands but that the state argues should properly be the province of the states and counties.

“This is not your father’s sagebrush rebellion,” said State Representative Ken Ivory, a Republican and chief sponsor of the Utah bill, referring to the wave of antifederal protests that rippled through the West in the 1960s and ’70s. “There are very sound legal bases for doing this.”