A coalition of 15 states is suing the Trump administration for declaring a national “energy emergency” earlier this year “despite the absence of any emergency,” according to their federal complaint.

Led by attorneys general in Washington state and California, the coalition challenges the president’s “fake” energy emergency that he declared on Jan. 20 under the National Emergencies Act, according to a Friday press release. They accuse the Trump administration of declaring the emergency in an unlawful attempt to “bypass critical ecological, historical, and cultural resource review” processes and proper permitting procedures for hundreds of fossil fuel projects that are being proposed “in and around the nation” — and “presumably many more in the future,” per the complaint.

Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.

The states say that to date, the use of emergency procedures were limited to “projects necessary during or in the aftermath of natural or human-made disasters,” like hurricanes, flooding and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which the coalition cites.

“But now, prodded onto the shakiest of limbs by the President’s unsupported and unlawful Executive Order, multiple federal agencies now seek to broadly employ these emergency procedures in non-emergency situations,” the complaint says.

More from Law&Crime: ‘Representative of a deranged authoritarian’: Trump and Stephen Miller blasted by legal experts over ‘active’ discussions about suspending habeas corpus

Filed Friday by the state AGs — all Democrats — the “energy emergency” lawsuit was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

The other states suing are Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.