SALT LAKE CITY - Wilderness groups were in federal court Friday trying to reverse a decision by the Bush administration that stopped a federal agency from creating wilderness study areas or doing surveys for wilderness-quality public lands.

The policy shift at the Bureau of Land Management was formalized by the settlement of a lawsuit Utah had filed against the federal government in 1996. The deal reached by former Gov. Mike Leavitt and former Interior Secretary Gale Norton in 2003 changed the way the BLM protects land across the West.

Earthjustice attorney Jim Angell, representing 10 wilderness groups, said the federal government can't surrender or bargain authority he said was vested in BLM to protect wilderness-quality lands.

Chief Utah federal judge Dee Benson didn't issue an immediate decision after Friday's hearing. The wilderness groups want the judge to declare the Leavitt-Norton deal violates federal environmental law and overturn it.

Gary Randall, a Department of Justice attorney, argued the wilderness groups had no standing to sue because nobody has suffered harm or damage, and that the settlement wasn't a "final" agency action subject to litigation.

Randall said the wilderness groups needed a "site-specific" decision by the BLM to make a case in court.

Angell said the settlement deprives the public of a chance to petition BLM for more wilderness study areas. He cited harm in the loss of solitude, wildlife habitat and clean water on public lands that could qualify for wilderness.

Randall conceded the BLM had used discretion to designate some wilderness study areas, but that the Bush administration had decided the BLM no longer had that authority.

"It's not unusual for an agency to decide its prior interpretation (of federal law) was incorrect" and make a policy change, Randall said outside court during a break in the hearing.

Inside court, both sides advanced often arcane arguments over the requirements of federal law and precedents set by other federal courts.