The Trump administration announced it closed EPA’s museum honoring 50 years of its history while blasting the Biden administration over expenses tied to running the facility.
Shuttering the National Environmental Museum and Education Center is the latest step EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has touted for advancing President Donald Trump’s goals to dramatically reduce federal government spending.
“Our commitment to responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars remains unwavering as I continue to oversee a line-by-line review of agency spending. The $4 million cost to build this one-room, little-trafficked museum inside of EPA with $600,000 in operational costs annually is yet another example of waste by the Biden administration that could have instead been spent on remediating environmental issues in forgotten communities,” Zeldin said in a video announcement.
No EPA staff was employed by the museum, said agency spokesperson Molly Vaseliou. About one-third of the museum’s annual costs went toward staffing two security guards to stand watch during its open weekday hours.
