EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on Monday announced the closure of the agency’s little-visited $4 million EPA museum.
The little known museum dedicated to the environmental regulatory agency cost $4 million to build according to Smithsonian and costs more than $600,000 annually operate.
The museum could not compete with the popular Smithsonian, National Museum of History, and other Washington, DC, landmarks. Between May 2024 and February 2025, the museum, despite being free to visit, only received 2,000 external visitors. This makes the cost per external visitor roughly $315 per person.
Annual costs of the EPA museum include:
- Over $123,000 in cleaning and landscaping
- Roughly $38,000 in routine maintenance and repair of museum audio/visual equipment
- Approximately $54,000 in the purchase, delivery, assembly, and installation of museum-grade storage systems for archival collections and materials
- About $123,000 in utilities
- Roughly $207,000 in two security guards while the museum is open Tuesday through Friday
While readers may anticipate the museum was created to be a nonpartisan display of America’s dedication to clean air, water, and land, the Biden administration chose to curate the museum with a notable lack of recognition between 2014 and January 2021, or when Trump served his first term in the White House.
Instead, the Biden administration focused its energies on promoting topics such as “environmental justice” and climate change.
Zeldin, a former congressman, has moved to cancel over $22 billion in contracts as part of the president’s initiative to slash diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental justice contracts and grants.
In contrast, the agency’s “Powering the Great American Comeback” initiative promotes automobile manufacturing, artificial intelligence capacity, and energy production.
Even though many might think Zeldin is solely focused on Trump’s goal of “energy dominance,” the EPA chief has also announced that he would move to clear the hundreds of backlogged cases to improve air quality. Zeldin has said the agency has ignored these backlogged cases because of the Biden administration’s focus on “ideological pursuits” rather than on the agency’s “core mission” to clean water, land, and air.
The New York Times has claimed that, although the museum is free for all to visit, there are still significant barriers to see the exhibits.
“First, there is the entrance door, so heavy and unyielding that it is all too easy to assume that the building is closed. Eventually, a gesticulating guard indicates otherwise. Inside, an airport-style security check awaits, with separate bins for laptops and bags — this is, after all, a federal building,” the Times wrote.
The outlet added, “For better or worse, there is no gift store.”
Dr. Stan Meiburg, a former career EPA official, said in an interview with the Times that he hopes that the Trump administration will keep the museum.
He said, “You keep this museum because it tells the actual story. It’s not a partisan story.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
The post Administrator Lee Zeldin Shutters Multi-Million Dollar EPA Museum appeared first on Breitbart.
