When Francesca Grifo was hired as EPA’s top scientific integrity official during the Obama administration, she called it a dream job.
She had been critiquing the federal government’s science policies from the outside for years, and she was eager to work inside EPA to boost transparency and protect scientists from intimidation, she said at the time.
Nearly a dozen years later, Grifo is resigning, she told colleagues Friday in an email obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News.
She began administrative leave Friday after accepting the Trump administration’s “deferred resignation” incentive. EPA has offered employees pay and benefits for several months after they stop working to encourage them to leave their posts as the administration moves to drastically downsize that agency’s workforce.
