The Environmental Protection Agency plans to work with Toyota Motor Corporation to overhaul internal management practices at the agency, Administrator Scott Pruitt said Thursday.

The announcement came in response to a question from Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) abou how the agency assessed its workload and determined how many people were necessary to meet its goals, at the first of two hearings before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday morning. The EPAs Office of Inspector General issued a report back in September 2011 criticizing the agency for not conducting a comprehensive workload analysis in 20 years, and Shimkus asked whether Pruitt planned to address it.

We are actually partnering with Toyota to begin a lean process at the agency to evaluate management practices, Pruitt said. The agency for many years and this is something I found surprising has not measured outcomes consistently.

The extent of the proposed partnership is unclear, but the EPA told HuffPost it was considering bringing on the company to advise on ways to streamline the National Environmental Policy Act process across agencies.

EPA, in conjunction with other federal agencies, is working to deploy lean management practices that eliminate waste and deliver measurable results, an EPA spokeswoman told HuffPost.

The EPA has historically used the term partner to describe big companies it has worked with to save water and increase renewable energy use , but inviting a company regulated by the agency to alter internal practices appears to be unprecedented, according to Don Anair, deputy director of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an EPA watchdog.

Weve seen a pattern with this EPA cozying up to industry, Anair told HuffPost. This is a clear conflict of interest.

The announcement, made as a passing remark on Pruitts first appearance before a Congressional oversight committee since taking office, raises concerns over how a corporate giant the EPA regulates could wield influence over agency functions. Like other automakers and trade associations, Toyota has lobbied aggressively to weaken Obama-era fuel economy standards.

I dont see anything wrong with learning from the private and public sectors from good management techniques, Janet McCabe, the former acting assistant administrator at the EPAs Office of Air and Radiation, told HuffPost. But depending on how embedded in the organization theyre going to be, it could raise questions, since they are a regulated industry thats interested in the substantive work of the agency.