Chelsea Clinton (accidentally?) RIPS the Obama administration over EPA and lead

Greg P. | 11:43 AM on March 29, 2017

This could be the best tweet yet from Chelsea Clinton yet, but we’re not sure she knows it as she’s actually criticizing the Obama administration and not that of President Trump.

Here she is responding to a tweet from STAT News reporting on an “internal memo” that shows the EPA “sidestepped [a] decision to tighten lead levels.” Sound bad, right? Like something Trump’s team would order?

EPA sidestepped decision to tighten standards for lead levels, leaving communities adrift https://t.co/UxsdAJ9h4y

— STAT (@statnews) March 28, 2017

Chelsea called the EPA’s actions “disappointing” and “dangerous”:

Disappointing an understatement. So too is dangerous. https://t.co/SD0cHfHw6C

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) March 29, 2017

And she got all super-sciency and thinks it’s important to “call out” those who aren’t in favor “a science-based and public health-focused EPA”:

Not baffling. I think a science-based & public health-focused EPA important. When it's not living up to either, also important to call out https://t.co/zJe9Idj1z0

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) March 29, 2017

But is she aware of whose EPA she’s criticizing? Remember, kids — always click on the link:

But in the final days of the Obama administration, the EPA instead issued an internal memo — obtained by STAT — that sidestepped the issue of a specific new threshold for acceptable lead levels. The agency provided only general guidance on the factors that should be used when determining whether cleanups are required. It did not, however, lower the threshold for soil cleanup to one that would translate into a blood level of 5 micrograms per deciliter, down from the current level of 10, as was expected.

The memo shocked outside experts and even some EPA officials, who privately expressed alarm about the issue.

“The fact remains that 10 is worse than five,” said Dr. David Bellinger, a Harvard Medical School professor who has served as an EPA adviser and who has studied the effects of lead on children. “There’s scientific medical consensus that adverse effects are occurring at level 5 or below. The cleanup target ought to be health-based, and based on the most current scientific information. There’s a lot of wiggle room left here.”