US EPA closing its museum, administrator says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said on Monday the EPA was closing a one-room museum at the agency's headquarters in Washington which he said cost $4 million to build and $600,000 per year to operate.

The EPA administrator said the museum attracted less than 2,000 visitors since it opened last year, calling it "another example of waste" by the administration of Democratic former President Joe Biden.

"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," Zeldin said on X.

Since taking office on January 20, Republican President Donald Trump has attempted to cut costs and gutted several federal agencies and programs, resulting in the dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and firings of tens of thousands of federal workers.

Trump has also attacked cultural institutions and museums, making himself the chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and issuing an executive order that accused the Smithsonian Institution - the vast museum and research complex that is a premier exhibition space for U.S. history and culture - of spreading 'anti-American ideology.'

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Kim Coghill)