The Environmental Protection Agency announced a major reorganization plan on Thursday, combining two key science offices.

The agency says that the reorganization is meant to reduce bureaucracy and boost efficiency, contrary to environmentalist groups’ fears that it will try to bias the scientific process.

The Washington Examiner exclusively learned of the reorganization plan for the EPA’s Office of Research and Development ahead of the agency’s announcement.

EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) is the agency’s largest office, charged with conducting scientific research across all aspects of environmental issues. It hadn’t been reorganized since 1995.

The change announced Thursday will consolidate the office’s 13 units into eight. Most significantly, it merges the Office of the Science Advisor with the Office of Science Policy, creating a new unit that houses both, called the Office of Science Advisor, Policy, and Engagement.

A second new office will combine multiple internal offices and the National Center for Environmental Research, which manages grants EPA issues to outside organizations, into the Office of Resource Management.

Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, who leads the EPA’s Office of Research and Development as its principal deputy assistant administrator for science, said the original structure created “siloed approaches” and “inefficient redundancies,” with too many separate units reporting to her.

“It’s bringing organizations with similar functions together,” Orme-Zavaleta told the Washington Examiner. “The type of research we do is not impacted. The work we are doing is not changing. We are not really changing what research we do, but we are changing how we manage what we do.”

When plans for the reorganization leaked last fall, environmental groups expressed concern that merging the science advisor’s functions with science policy could threaten the independence of the agency’s scientists whose research is supposed to inform policy.

If the functions are too close, critics say, political policymakers could interfere with the science advisor’s job of ensuring the best science is considered in its regulatory decisions.

“You want scientific research to be as independent as possible from the regulators,” said Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

But Halpern said the official reorganization plan revealed Thursday is “better than once feared.”

Under the plan, the science adviser continues to directly report to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. That’s because in recent years, due to a change implemented in the second half of the Obama administration, the science adviser post has actually been filled by the head of the Office of Research and Development, meaning they are the same position, with a direct report to the EPA administrator.

Orme-Zavaleta, a senior career official at EPA since 1981 who is a doctor and scientist by trade, is currently occupying that combined role as acting science advisor and head of Office of the Research and Development because President Trump has not nominated an assistant administrator for the office.

Orme-Zavaleta insisted that as acting science adviser, she had ample access to Wheeler, with regular meetings.

She said EPA consulted with career staff on the reorganization, which will not result in any job losses. As part of the reorganization, EPA is also creating four new research centers, intended to allow scientists who work in the same or complementary fields to work more closely together.

EPA is holding listening sessions on the plan with Office of Research and Development staff in the coming months, and will consult with Congress about it, with the goal of implementing the reorganization by the beginning of fiscal year 2020.

“The overarching goal is increasing the impact we have in supporting the agency’s mission with the right kind of science,” Orme-Zavaleta said.

Environmental groups and Democrats said Thursday they would wait and see before judging EPA’s plans.

“Reorganizations aren’t necessarily a bad thing, and the fact there were so many direct reports to the head of ORD was something that merited scrutiny,” Halpern said. “The real question is, will the functions that are in the office of science advisor continue to have the same agency-wide access and stature as they do now. We will see how that plays out.”

Critics have accused EPA of downplaying science with other policy initiatives, and giving more input to industry. One controversial proposal being finalized by EPA would block the agency from using scientific studies that do not make public the raw data used in research, which opponents say would restrict the research the agency can use in drafting environmental regulations.

In addition, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office last month released a report finding EPA political officials had delayed an agency research unit, known as the Integrated Risk Information System, from releasing studies on the health risks of certain chemicals.

A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware — the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees the EPA’s budget — said the senator hopes the reorganization can “address inefficiencies and political interference” that were “recently identified” in the IRIS program.