EPA Museum – Yes, One Actually Existed – Shuttered After Zeldin Calls Out Massive Funding, Lack of Visitors

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under Administrator Lee Zeldin, has decided to close the National Environmental Museum and Education Center, a project launched during the Biden administration, Fox News reports. Despite its mission to “highlight environmental achievements,” the museum struggled to attract visitors leaving taxpayers with a hefty bill for a largely empty space. Even with free admission, relatively no one could find any desire to walk through the doors. Although the lack of visitors is likely not surprising anyone, the money being poured into the museum just might.

The museum, located at the EPA headquarters near the White House, opened in May 2024 with the goal of celebrating America’s environmental progress. Former EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan envisioned it as a space to honor bipartisan efforts to protect public health and the environment. However, the museum saw fewer than 2,000 visitors in its first nine months, which some may call pathetic.

Taxpayers had invested $4 million to bring the museum up to Smithsonian standards, with an additional $600,000 per year required for upkeep. That worked out to about $315 per visitor—a price tag that Zeldin and his team argue cannot be justified.

According to Zeldin’s EPA, the museum leaned heavily on themes like “environmental justice” and climate change, which critics argued felt more like partisan messaging than an inclusive celebration of environmental progress. The exhibits were also criticized for focusing disproportionately on Democratic administrations while overlooking bipartisan achievements.

Operational costs didn’t help its case. Maintenance expenses included everything from artifact storage and landscaping to security and audiovisual upkeep. According to Fox News, “a breakdown of estimated annual costs to operate the museum, which was provided to Fox Digital, shows taxpayers were expected to foot the bill for an estimated: $123,766.29 in annual cleaning and landscaping costs, $37,899 for audio and visual maintenance, $54,292.99 in annual ‘artifact storage’ costs, $8,900 for ‘Magnetometer maintenance,’ $46,000 for X-ray maintenance, an estimated $123,000 in utility costs, and $207,326 in annual costs to fund two security guards for the museum during operating hours. The total annual operating costs totaled just more than $600,000.”

The closure was applauded by groups like the Functional Government Initiative, whose communications director Rod Law argued that the EPA should prioritize addressing real-world issues like toxic waste rather than maintaining an underused museum.

Law slammed the museum arguing, “Sadly, promoting special interest climate activism and growing the out-of-touch bureaucracy were hallmarks of the EPA in the Biden administration, and this museum was an unfortunate result of such policy. Administrator Zeldin closing it protects taxpayers, helps return the EPA to its statutory mission of protecting the environment, and abandons past dysfunction and bureaucratic self-promotion.”

The decision comes amid broader cost-cutting measures by Zeldin, who has already rolled back several Biden-era initiatives, including climate grants and clean-energy programs. While these moves have sparked debate among environmental advocates, they align with Zeldin’s focus on streamlining government spending as per one of President Trump’s main missions.

Now that the EPA’s museum experiment has come to an end, it might serve as a wakeup call to American taxpayers as they learn where their hard-earned money has been spent.