EPA Closes Museum Due to Low Visitors and High Operating Costs

EPA Museum Closure

• 🎯 The EPA is closing its year-old museum, located at EPA headquarters in Washington D.C., due to extremely low visitor numbers and high operating costs.
• 💰 The museum, built by the Biden Administration for $4 million in taxpayer dollars, cost $600,000 annually to operate.
• 💸 Specific annual operating costs included $123,000 for cleaning, $27,000 for security, $54,000 for maintenance, and $54,000 for storage.

Visitor Statistics and Cost Per Visitor

• 📉 From May 2024 through the previous month, only 1,999 members of the public visited the museum, despite free admission.
• 💡 This resulted in an operating cost of $315 per external visitor.

Reasons for Closure and Future Plans

• 🚫 EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin stated the museum will be shut down permanently, citing a pledge to be an exceptional steward of taxpayer dollars.
• ⚖️ The museum is described as a "shrine to environmental justice and climate change" that tells an "ideologically slanted partial story" of the EPA, omitting any mention of President Trump's first Administration.
• ✅ The EPA plans to continue promoting its mission of protecting human health and the environment through other means, without incurring the high costs of the underutilized museum.