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Press Release:

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Tong Chal­lenges Trump Fake Ener­gy Emer­gency

Preceding Event:

On Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his sec­ond term, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump declared a “nation­al ener­gy emer­gency” with Exec­u­tive Order 14156. With the emer­gency dec­la­ra­tion as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, per­mits and oth­er nec­es­sary approvals were being expe­dit­ed and grant­ed on an emer­gency basis.
Accord­ing to the press release, “At the direc­tion of the pres­i­dent, fed­er­al agen­cies are bypass­ing or short­en­ing crit­i­cal reviews under the Clean Water Act, Endan­gered Species Act, and the His­toric Nation­al Preser­va­tion Act for ener­gy projects. These laws play a crit­i­cal role pro­tect­ing the envi­ron­ment and human health and pro­tect­ing our her­itage and places sacred to tribes.”

General Overview:

The press release, from May 5, 2025, says “Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Tong filed suit today along­side four­teen oth­er states to chal­lenge the president’s fake ‘ener­gy emer­gency,’ declared to line the pock­ets of Big Oil by hand­ing out free pass­es to pol­lute our envi­ron­ment.” The law­suit says that U.S. ener­gy pro­duc­tion is at an all time high, con­tra­dict­ing the claim of an ener­gy emer­gency. Addi­tion­al­ly, the law­suit says that it is in direct con­flict with the wind ener­gy EO as it simul­ta­ne­ous­ly halts the pro­duc­tion of ener­gy while declar­ing that more ener­gy is need­ed. At issue is the invo­ca­tion of nation­al emer­gency author­i­ties and the alleged under­min­ing of states’ rights by rush­ing through process­es of approval when they will be affect­ed by the projects.
“The attor­neys gen­er­al ask the court to declare the president’s direc­tive, and the agen­cies’ imple­men­ta­tion of it, ille­gal and stop them from issu­ing emer­gency per­mits under the exec­u­tive order,” the press release said.

Connecticut Nexus:

Accord­ing to the law­suit, “On or around Feb­ru­ary 20, 2025, as media reports began to cir­cu­late around the Project List and the Army Corps of Engi­neers response to the Exec­u­tive Order, the vast major­i­ty of projects on the Project List dis­ap­peared from the Per­mit­ting Data­base alto­geth­er, includ­ing projects that had been iden­ti­fied as need­ing indi­vid­ual per­mits, cre­at­ing uncer­tain­ty about the Corp’s plans for these pro­posed projects. How­ev­er, on Feb­ru­ary 13, 2025, the Corps emailed offi­cials for the State of Con­necti­cut indi­cat­ing the Army Corps of Engi­neers ‘intent to estab­lish emer­gency per­mit­ting pro­ce­dures across the New Eng­land Dis­trict, pur­suant to the Nation­al Ener­gy dec­la­ra­tion in Exec­u­tive Order 14156’.”

Date of filing:

May 9, 2025

Case #:

2:25-cv-00869

Case title:

State of Wash­ing­ton et al v. Trump et al

Plaintiffs: 15 states

• STATE OF WASHINGTON,
• STATE OF CALIFORNIA,
• STATE OF ARIZONA,
• STATE OF CONNECTICUT,
• ILLINOIS,
• STATE OF STATE OF MAINE,
• STATE OF MARYLAND,
• COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS,
• PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,
• STATE OF MINNESOTA,
• STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
• STATE OF OREGON,
• STATE OF RHODE ISLAND,
• STATE OF VERMONT,
• STATE OF WISCONSIN

Defendants:

• DONALD TRUMP, in his offi­cial capac­i­ty as Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States
• DANIEL DRISCOLL , in his offi­cial capac­i­ty as Sec­re­tary of the Army ;
• LIEUTENANT GENERAL WILLIAM H. GRAH AM, JR., in his offi­cial capac­i­ty as Chief of Engi­neers and Com­mand­ing Gen­er­al of the U.S. Corps Army of Engi­neers;
• U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS ;
• TRAVIS VOYLES, in his offi­cial capac­i­ty as Vice Chair of the Advi­so­ry Coun­cil on His­toric Preser­va­tion;
• ADVISORY COUNCIL ON HISTORIC PRESERVATION

Court:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE

Status as of Dec. 1, 2025:

OPEN
Last fil­ing: Nov. 13, 2025

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