Mr. Lubnau, a Republican from energy-rich Campbell County, said he subsequently told the university that he was not serious about cutting financing, and emphasized that he never called for the sculpture’s removal.

“I don’t think the university planned for the consequences of its actions very well,” he said. “But I have never commented publicly on the artist or the merit of the art. I’ve always maintained that tensions in ideas make us stronger.”

Mr. Lubnau added, “I’m not afraid of any idea.”

Mr. Loomis, of the mining association, said that the group was not trying to tell the university what art to display, but that it had a right to complain about something it deemed offensive.

“We felt like it was a slap,” he said. “So we reacted. We may have overreacted. We’re over it.”

But if the controversy is finished for the energy industry, it is not for the university.

E-mails show that one university official told an alumnus that the sculpture was removed early from its perch on an expanse of grass because of water damage — an irrigation line had broken in the area.

An editorial on Monday in The Casper Star-Tribune criticized the university for misleading the public over the reason the artwork was taken down.

Dr. Buchanan declined to comment on the matter. Chris Boswell, a vice president at the university, said that the explanation given to the alumnus was a mistake, and that no official reason had ever been released.