On Monday, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper issued a temporary restraining order out of Los Angeles barring the Navy from using the high-intensity, "mid-frequency active sonar" allegedly harmful to marine mammals after the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups filed a lawsuit.

The use of sonar in the Rimpac 2006 exercises off Hawai'i was set to start tomorrow. Twenty-one ships were scheduled to leave Pearl Harbor today for the exercise scheduled through July 28.

Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney with the defense council, said the Navy in the emergency motion made a "very similar argument as was made at district court — arguing that they were right on the law, and that national security requires them to be able to proceed."

The defense council has to respond by tomorrow. Reynolds said he had not completely read through the "quite lengthy" motion, "but I assume it's just asking for the court to act as soon as it can."

The exercise involves more than 19,000 service members, 35 surface ships, six submarines, 160 aircraft and amphibious forces from eight nations.