The Environmental Protection Agency announced the appointment of its new Scientific Integrity Officer, Dr. Francesca Grifo, in a press release yesterday. Dr. Grifo’s appointment is part of a broader EPA scientific integrity policy, released in early 2012, which aims to ensure that the agency’s regulatory efforts are based on sound science.

“EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment depends upon the integrity of science. It is the agency’s key responsibility to conduct, utilize, and communicate scientific information with the highest degree of integrity, and transparency to the American public,” said the EPA.

The EPA came under fire in 2011 when it put out a press release on preliminary findings from a Pavillion, Wyoming study – which had not yet undergone peer review – which linked water contamination in the area to hydraulic fracturing. Critics alleged that the study was flawed and the release of findings political, and the EPA ultimately handed the investigation over to the state of Wyoming.