CHEYENNE -- Despite Gov. Dave Freudenthal's call for a halt to the process, the U.S. Forest Service is proceeding to offer nearly 20,000 acres on the Bridger-Teton National Forest for lease for oil and gas development at auction today.

In a letter last week to federal land managers, Freudenthal said it would make sense to resolve pending protests of an energy lease sale last December of land within the Bridger-Teton before offering more of the forest lands for lease.

Conservation groups, as well as outfitters and guides, protested December's lease sale, saying drilling on the Forest Service lands threatened to harm trout streams and other wildlife habitat in the Wyoming Range. Those appeals are still pending with the BLM, which handles energy leasing on both its own and Forest Service lands.

Freudenthal last week wrote to Jack Troyer, regional forester with the U.S. Forest Service in Ogden, Utah, and Bob Bennett, Wyoming state director of the BLM.

"All told, 44,000 acres have been slated for oil and gas leasing in the Bridger-Teton," Freudenthal wrote. "Such leasing has raised the ire of a varied range of groups and constituencies."

Freudenthal warned the federal officials that failing to address the pending protests from December's lease of Bridger-Teton lands before holding another lease sale "will be perceived by many as a predetermination of the existing appeals."

In a response letter to Freudenthal on Monday, Troyer said the Forest Service decided to lease lands in the Bridger-Teton in April 2005 after a long public involvement process. Troyer stated that his agency had reviewed the protests to the December sale before the lands were leased and determined that the leasing was appropriate.

"We have responded in a similar manner relative to the protests of the upcoming April sale," Troyer wrote to Freudenthal.

"The Mining and Mineral Policy Act of 1970 and the Energy Security Act of 1980 direct us to move forward with leasing," Troyer wrote to Freudenthal. "Therefore, we have directed the BLM proceed with the sale as scheduled."

Steven Hall, spokesman for the BLM in Wyoming, said the agency plans today to auction off the right to extract oil and gas from 176,896 acres in 161 parcels, including the Forest Service parcels. While the federal government owns all the mineral rights, he said the surface of the land is managed by the Forest Service, the BLM or private parties.

Hall said his agency has not resolved protests of the December lease sale involving Forest Service land. He said the BLM intends to act on them soon.

Hall said royalties on oil and gas production on federal land in Wyoming last year totaled $799 million, of which half went to the state.