Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the "shrine to environmental justice and climate change" has been permanently shuttered, Breitbart reported. Zeldin made this announcement in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.
President Donald Trump's EPA head has followed the lead of the Department of Government Efficiency to begin streamlining the agency. One of the many things he chose to cut was the EPA "shrine" created by President Joe Biden's administration.
"If you were to visit the museum located here at EPA headquarters in D.C., you would learn a lot about the road to environmental justice and climate change," Zeldin said. He noted the $4 million price tag and $600,000 in operating costs despite low numbers of visitors.
The Biden Admin spent $4M in tax dollars on a museum to tell a selective story of @EPA history. It costs $600K per year to operate even though only 1,909 external visitors came through in the last 9 months. Today we are closing it. pic.twitter.com/ghTQ2MQX4N
— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) March 31, 2025
In the video, Zeldin shared the details of this vanity project by the previous administration that also left out anything about gains during Trump's first term. "This museum claims EPA pursues its mission by advancing environmental justice, equity, and civil rights compliance," Zeldin noted.
"A timeline of key events conveniently omits any mention of President Trump’s first administration," he added. It also comes at an exorbitant cost to taxpayers. "This agency has been spending $123,000 on cleaning, $207,000 for security, $54,000 on maintenance, and an additional $54,000 on storage," Zeldin went on.
This cost was incurred as the museum only brought in 1,909 visitors in the period between May 2024 and February 2025. "Even though it is free admission, this museum costs you, the taxpayer, $315 per external visitor," Zeldin continued.
"I have pledged to be an exceptional steward of taxpayer dollars, so this shrine to EJ [environmental justice] and climate change will now be shut down for good. I will do my part to help the American people learn more about the amazing work of our agency to provide cleaner, healthier, and safer land, air, and water," he added.
"We will do so without paying over half a million in tax dollars on a museum that is barely visited and designed to tell an ideologically slanted partial story of the EPA," Zeldin pledged. He further promised that this would do his job without "burning tax dollars on pet projects that do nothing to help this agency achieve our mission of protecting human health and the environment."
Zeldin has already done impressive work streamlining the EPA since his confirmation in January. He is credited with saving almost $2 billion by eliminating "400 DEI and environmental justice grants."
The former congressman also found a $2 billion scheme involving failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. "Stacey Abrams’ Power Forward Communities received $2 BILLION to be a pass through entity for Biden EPA’s $20 billion ‘gold bar’ scheme. They reported just $100 in total revenue after their founding in late 2023," Zeldin touted in February.
This comes as Elon Musk's DOGE seeks to cut as much as $4 billion per day from the federal spending budget to overcome a $1 trillion deficit, the New York Post reported. While Democrats claim that these cuts will harm the American people, Musk is confident it will help trim the fat from the government to make it more robust.
"This is a revolution, and I think it might be the biggest revolution in government since the original revolution. America will be solvent. The critical programs that people depend upon will work, and it’s going to be a fantastic future," Musk told Fox News' Bret Baier last week.
These agencies have been burning through taxpayer dollars for decades on the most ridiculous endeavors. It's about time people like Zeldin and Musk take the initiative to cut out expenditures that benefit nobody outside of government.
