Environment Minister Melissa Price ordered a sudden meeting between scientists and her department over the Adani mine the day her Queensland colleagues demanded the government progress a critical federal approval, it has emerged.

The Department of the Environment and Energy has confirmed that Ms Price, rather than bureaucrats, requested controversial meetings between senior department staff and two scientific agencies, CSIRO and Geoscience Australia, to discuss changes to Adani's contentious groundwater management plan.

Federal Environment Minister Melissa Price was under pressure to sign off on the Adani project before the election. Credit:AAP

The department said the request came on April 4 – the same day News Corp reported that a delegation of Queensland MPs had met Prime Minister Scott Morrison over concerns that Ms Price was refusing to sign off on the plan.

Ms Price has insisted her decision was not the result of political pressure and was based purely on advice from the scientific agencies, which had been commissioned to provide independent technical oversight.