In a city where world-class masterpieces sit in marble temples that line the National Mall, the small museum devoted to the work of the Environmental Protection Agency, tucked away in a federal building near the White House, has not exactly inspired much fanfare. But as President Trump and Elon Musk slash and burn their way through Washington’s federal bureaucracy, this humble tribute to the E.P.A.’s mission of curbing pollution and fighting climate change somehow remains open — perhaps as a symbol of resilience, possibly because nobody knows that the museum exists.
The National Environmental Museum and Education Center, as the E.P.A. museum is known, opened in 2024 on the ground floor of the imposing William Jefferson Clinton Building North on Pennsylvania Avenue. The space is small but bright, in contrast with the drab exhibit in a nearby federal building that served as a beta version of the museum while the permanent one was being designed.
With the Trump administration threatening potentially huge staff and budget cuts, the museum could soon come to serve as a testament to a hobbled, diminished agency.
“It was really a labor of love,” said Stan Meiburg, who served as acting deputy E.P.A. administrator from 2014 until 2017. Dr. Meiburg recalled that the inspiration for a tribute to the E.P.A.’s work came after Gina McCarthy, the E.P.A. administrator at the time, toured an environmental museum during a 2015 visit to Japan. “That was really all it took,” Dr. Meiburg recalled in an interview. “People were tremendously enthusiastic about it.”
