U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced Monday the closure of a controversial one-room EPA museum at agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., calling it an example of “wasteful spending” under the Biden administration.
The museum, which cost $4 million in taxpayer dollars to build and an additional $600,000 annually to maintain, received fewer than 2,000 external visitors from May 2024 to February 2025. Internal figures also revealed that more than 40% of visitors were EPA staff members.
“Our commitment to responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars remains unwavering,” said Zeldin. “This museum is yet another example of waste by the Biden administration that could have instead been spent on remediating environmental issues in forgotten communities.”
According to Zeldin, the museum’s content heavily emphasized “environmental justice” while omitting key environmental progress made during President Donald Trump’s first term — including improved air quality and the first nationwide PFAS action plan.
“While Americans were left to contend with sky-high prices and inflation, the Biden administration spent millions on this ‘museum’ to proliferate a political agenda,” Zeldin continued. “Gone are the days of funding partisan pet projects at the detriment of the American taxpayers.”
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Hidden Costs and Minimal Impact
Though entry to the museum was free, the cost per external visitor averaged nearly $315, according to EPA estimates. Additional annual expenses included:
- $207,000 for private security
- $123,000 for cleaning and landscaping
- $54,000 on X-ray and magnetometer maintenance
- $54,000 on artifact storage
- $40,000 on AV equipment upkeep
Zeldin noted the museum’s omission of accomplishments between 2014 and 2021, which he described as a deliberate exclusion of Trump-era environmental progress.
Cutting Costs and Refocusing the Mission
Since taking over the agency earlier this year, Administrator Zeldin has initiated a sweeping audit of EPA expenditures. His efforts have reportedly led to the cancellation of more than $22 billion in what he called “wasteful grants and contracts.”
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“This closure is part of a broader effort to eliminate unnecessary costs and restore EPA’s focus on its core mission — protecting human health and the environment, not promoting political narratives,” Zeldin said.
The museum’s physical space is expected to be repurposed for EPA administrative use or potentially opened to public-private environmental partnerships.
The move marks the latest in a series of reversals under the Trump administration aimed at scaling back Biden-era initiatives seen as symbolic or politically driven.
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