Salt Lake City ? In a high-profile reversal of the Bush administration, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday the government is scrapping the leases of 77 parcels of federal land for oil and gas drilling in Utah’s redrock country.

“In the last weeks in office, the Bush administration rushed ahead to sell oil and gas leases near some of our nation’s most precious landscapes in Utah,” Salazar said from Washington in a teleconference call with reporters.

He said he had ordered the Bureau of Land Management, which is part of the Interior Department, to not cash checks from winning bidders for parcels at issue in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups. The sales were worth $6 million to the government in addition to royalties on any oil or gas production.

“We will take time and a fresh look at these 77 parcels to see if they are appropriate for oil and gas development,” Salazar said. A federal judge put the sale of the 77 parcels, totaling about 100,000 acres, on hold last month until the lawsuit was resolved.