JACKSON - Gov. Dave Freudenthal is leaning on federal cabinet officials to cancel suspended energy leases issued in the Wyoming Range and offer a refund to companies.

Freudenthal wrote a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, saying the area is important to Wyoming and should be protected.

He repeatedly referenced pending legislation from U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., that will likely seek to prevent further leasing in the area.

The governor asked the two directors - Kempthorne oversees Bureau of Land Management lands and Johanns U.S. Forest Service lands - to cancel current leases in a 44,600-acre area and reimburse energy companies for the money they spent buying the leases.

"To do otherwise would seem to controvert the clear intent of the proposed legislation and will of the people of the state of Wyoming," Freudenthal said in his Sept. 20 letter.

In 2005 and 2006, the Bridger-Teton National Forest agreed to put 44,600 acres in the Wyoming Range on the auction block for energy leasing. That number was scaled down from an eyed 175,000 acres in the area.

All the leases issued through BLM sales in that 44,600 area have been protested, and a federal appeals board has ruled any leasing should be halted pending further review of the environmental impacts.

There are other existing leases in the Wyoming Range.

See Friday's Casper Star-Tribune for more.