The issue of politicized science surfaced during the 2016 United States presidential campaign by then Republican candidate Donald Trump. Trump stated his intention to strip NASA's Earth Science division of its funding, a move that "would mean the elimination of NASA's world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena". Subsequently, the Trump administration successfully nominated Jim Bridenstine, who had no background in science and rejected the scientific consensus on climate change, to lead NASA. Under the Trump administration, the Department of Energy prohibited the use of the term "climate change". In March 2020 "The New York Times" reported that an official at the Interior Department has repeatedly inserted climate change-denying language into the agency's scientific reports, such as those that affect water and mineral rights.