President Donald Trump wasted no time after his inauguration Monday delivering on promises to curtail a budding American offshore wind industry, issuing an executive order that threatens to set back developments sited off the coast of Maryland.

Among a long list of executive actions Trump signed before supporters Monday night, the president ordered a temporary halt on all new federal leases, permits and loans for both offshore and onshore wind development until his administration conducts an environmental and economic review.

He also called on agencies to examine the “necessity of terminating or amending” existing leases.

Trump’s attack on the wind industry likely faces legal challenges, and it’s not clear how much authority the president has to stop projects already approved by former President Joe Biden’s administration.

Projects off the coast of Maryland remain in various stages of predevelopment. Three companies have leased waters off the Maryland and Delaware coastline, but only one — the Baltimore-based U.S. Wind, which is developing a wind farm off Ocean City — has received the necessary permits from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Timothy Fox, an offshore wind analyst with the firm ClearView Energy Partners, said last week that the direct impacts of an executive order might be more limited than some have suggested, since Biden officials did a good job of clearing the decks of project applications before the end of his term.

But after seeing the specifics of Trump’s order, Fox said Tuesday morning that the measure could “significantly curtail” U.S. offshore development over the next four years, and even undo headway made under Biden.

Not only does Trump’s order freeze new lease sales, but Fox said it “strongly suggests” that his administration may try to roll back leases and permits approved under Biden.

Fox explained that an existing federal law might give the administration the authority it needs to cancel finalized leases, since it offers several broad reasons Trump officials could use to justify such a move. Fox warned that Trump also could use the courts to pull back permits for offshore developments already approved by the Biden administration.

Ocean City and other seaside communities are pursuing a lawsuit against BOEM over its siting of the U.S. Wind project, and Trump could instruct federal attorneys to side with the litigants in that case in an effort to revoke Biden-era permits.

While the Biden team went to bat for offshore wind projects facing challenges in court, Fox said Trump’s order suggests his administration “is unlikely to vigorously defend” permits issued by his predecessor.

Even so, a spokesperson for U.S. Wind expressed optimism in a statement Tuesday and emphasized aspects of their project that align with Trump’s platform.

U.S. Wind’s development will bring jobs and power hundreds of thousands of homes in the region, said Nancy Sopko, the company’s vice president of external affairs, while also reviving the former Bethlehem Steel site with a factory manufacturing pilings needed to erect wind turbines off the Maryland coast.

“US Wind’s projects are poised to deliver on the President’s promise of achieving American energy dominance, especially now that we have received all of our federal permits,” Sopko said. “This site, once used to produce the steel beams for the Empire State Building, will rise again to meet the demands of a new American industry. We look forward to working with the new administration to fully realize the potential of American ingenuity and innovation.”

A spokesperson for the Danish company Ørsted, which holds an offshore lease area near the Maryland-Delaware line, said only that the company is reviewing Trump’s order. The Norwegian company Equinor, which leased a nearby area last year, declined to comment.

Trump’s return to power comes as offshore wind development has faced economic setbacks in the last few years that have stalled Ørsted’s Maryland project. Ørsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, announced Monday that it was writing down the value of its East Coast developments by $310 million, part of a broader $1.7 billion writedown. The company said it remains committed to its U.S. projects long-term.

Other advocates for offshore wind condemned Trump’s order as a blow to national energy challenges and to domestic manufacturing.

“Today’s actions threaten to strand $25 billion already flowing into new ports, vessels, and manufacturing centers, and curtail future investments across our country,” said Liz Burdock, founder and CEO of the Baltimore-based Oceantic Network. “We urge the administration to reverse this sweeping action and keep America working in offshore energy as part of its commitment to an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy strategy.”

Trump has long antagonized offshore wind development, suggesting that wind turbines cause cancer, often pointing out the threat wind farms can pose for birds and repeating unfounded claims about the dangers of wind farms to whales.

“I hate wind,” he reportedly told oil executives during a meeting last year.

Maryland leaders have set a nonbinding goal of developing 8.5 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2031, and getting the industry off the ground will be critical to the state’s efforts to transition away from fossil fuels and slash its contributions to climate change.

In a brief statement, Gov. Wes Moore spokesman Carter Elliott said the governor remains committed to the state’s clean energy goals. Elliott pointed to the importance of development at the Sparrows Point site, and said the Moore administration plans to evaluate the impacts of Trump’s orders on Maryland and will continue “to advance policies that create jobs, lower energy costs, and grow our economy.”

Trump’s swift blow to offshore wind came days after he reportedly tasked a New Jersey congressman with drafting an executive order to curtail offshore wind development. The measure signed by the president Monday evening, though, proved even more sweeping than that draft proposal.

The implications could outlast Trump himself.

Developers might be wary of investing more money in the United States, Fox said, since it’s clear that elections can mean big political swings for the industry.