Moms React to EPA Director Boasting of Closing Museum, “Take This Show on the Road!”
President Trump’s Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin, is promoting a video which features him walking throughout an emptied EPA Museum in Washington, D.C.
Zeldin announced in the video with pride that the federal government is closing the museum, saying “the Biden administration spent $4 million in tax dollars on a museum to tell a selective story of EPA history.”
Zeldin said “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.”
While conservatives celebrate the closing of the museum, the organization Moms Clean Air Force (a community of 1.5 million mothers and fathers “united against air pollution, to protect our children’s health”) opposed Zeldin’s decision.
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
They replied on X: “Zeldin sure knows how to be destructive. He doesn’t seem to know how to be constructive. We would be far more impressed if Zeldin said: We need a museum to tell everyone about the amazing things EPA has accomplished over the years in protecting human health and the environment. The Clean Air Act is a jewel in the crown of american laws. Today I’m announcing an investment in deepening and broadening the amazing stories EPA can tell—like how we got lead out of gasoline, and how we started getting mercury out of our air–and reminding Americans what life was like before the Clean Air Act, and why a strong, protective EPA is so needed. And then I will take this show on the road!”
Criticism is also coming from the right. One MAGA supporter questioned Zeldin’s decision and suggested that the Trump administration is missing an opportunity to “tell the whole story” at the museum.
(As MAGA podcaster Nick Sortor replied: “I guarantee there was nothing in the ‘museum’ about the EPA’s East Palestine, Ohio coverup.”)
The MAGA supporter asked: “Why close it? Would be better to leave it open and tell the unselective story. The whole story. How much of the 600k are you saving by closing it?”
He added, “Closed buildings cost money. If they told the whole story, including scandals, frauds, criticisms, etc…. Similar to how Kash wanted an fbi museum, I think it could be worth not just having a closed building.”