The attorneys general for 15 US states sued President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday over the president’s executive order declaring that the US is in a national energy emergency.

Executive Order No. 14,156, titled “Declaring a National Energy Emergency,” was signed by Trump on his first day in office. The order directed agencies to utilize all emergency permit approval policies at their disposal to facilitate expedited harvesting and utilization of all energy sources domestically. The order’s purpose relates to the Trump administration’s overall goal of making the US self-sufficient in energy production. The order stated in relevant part:

Energy security is an increasingly crucial theater of global competition.  In an effort to harm the American people, hostile state and non-state foreign actors have targeted our domestic energy infrastructure, weaponized our reliance on foreign energy, and abused their ability to cause dramatic swings within international commodity markets.

The state attorneys general argue in their complaint that government bodies such as the Department of the Interior are bypassing certain requirements for gas and oil collection laid out in the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. The bypassing of these requirements, the plaintiffs say, can lead to irreparable environmental damages in the states, invoking federalism principles as well:

The shortcuts inherent in rushing through emergency processes fundamentally undermine the rights of States. The Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. §§ 1251 et seq., for example, enshrined state rights to protect water quality within their borders. And such shortcuts, even when properly invoked, irreparably harm the states, their residents, and their environments. As a result, and for just one example, the Corps’s regulations authorize “emergency procedures” only when normal procedures would result in unacceptable hazard to human life, significant loss of property, or immediate, unforeseen, and significant economic hardship.

The plaintiffs emphasize that the invocation of the Nation’s energy emergency polices should be reserved for actual emergencies, not just changes in presidential policy.