Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is scrapping the lease of 77 parcels of federal land for oil and gas drilling in red-rock country of Utah in one of the most high-profile reversals of the former administration.

The federal government will give up $6 million in lease sales, he said Wednesday.

"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, D.C., on a teleconference call with reporters.

Salazar 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.

"We will take time and a fresh look at these 77 parcels to see if they are appropriate for oil and gas development," he said.

Denver-based Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States denounced Salazar's decision, saying it would "have a chilling effect on Utah's economy."

"It's hard to imagine why this administration would come out with policies that limit economic development in Utah," said Kathleen Sgamma, IPAMS' director of government affairs. "A lease sale is an economic stimulus to the state and federal government."

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, said Salazar was taking "more American energy off the table. Taking more land out of production puts us further at the mercy of nations hostile to the United States."

A federal judge put the sale of the Utah parcels on hold last month.

Now, Salazar is refusing to sell any of them - at least until the new administration has a chance to take a second look.

Among critics of December's lease auction for the parcels was Robert Redford, who owns Sundance ski resort in Utah and has spent a lifetime on horseback in southern Utah's canyons.

"I see this announcement as a sign that after eight long years of rapacious greed and backdoor dealings, our government is returning a sense of balance to the way it manages our lands," Redford, 71, said in a statement issued Wednesday.

Salazar said some of the 77 lease parcels are too close to Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur National Monument, all in Utah. Other leases taken off the table were on the high cliffs of whitewater sections of the Green River through Desolation Canyon.

Salazar also acted to protect plateaus populated by big game atop Nine Mile Canyon, sometimes called the world's longest art gallery for its collection of ancient rock-art panels.

Gargi Chakrabarty contributed to this report.