SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The U.S. Department of the Interior scaled back a Bush administration plan Friday to lease Western range lands for development of oil shale and tar sands, the unconventional sources of oil found in pockets of the Rocky Mountains.

Federal officials said they were set to authorize 1,250 square miles of public land for commercial leasing in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. That’s a third of the range lands that President George W. Bush planned to offer, and the new administration said it was taking wilderness-quality lands off the table.