Vice Chair Chou at Colorado State Capitol: Protect the Boundary Waters
On Earth Day 2026, Vice Chair Howard Chou was a featured speaker at a rally inside the Colorado State Capitol, where he made the case for protecting one of America's most treasured wilderness areas — and against the Trump administration's push to open it to industrial mining.
Chou spoke about the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota, a million-acre expanse of interconnected lakes, rivers, and forests that draws more visitors than any other wilderness in the National Wilderness Preservation System.
He warned that the Trump administration's recent moves to roll back protections and allow sulfide-ore copper mining on the Boundary Waters' doorstep threaten to permanently contaminate the watershed, devastate the regional economy that depends on clean water, and break faith with the generations who have fought to keep this place wild.
The rally, held at the Capitol on Earth Day, brought together state legislators, environmental organizations, and community leaders to celebrate Colorado's environmental leadership and to confront the Trump administration's rollback of federal environmental protections.
