There might be expenses, but I would also be hesitant to let a site run without a human being able to monitor it, respond to any alerts, apply security patches, etc.
All that does is give you an invalid certificate warning when you go to the site. How does that warrant shutting it down. If you can't see that this is 100% politically motivated. Well... there is one born every minute...a <blank> and his money are soon parted....