The State - News from May 25, 1989

Declaring that federal policies are wasting far more energy than could ever be pumped from oil and gas fields off the California coast, a parade of witnesses Wednesday urged a task force appointed by President Bush to push for a national energy policy that stresses conservation and development of alternative energy sources. The strongly worded pleas, combined with opposition to offshore oil and gas drilling by most of the state’s ranking constitutional officers, came as the President’s Outer Continental Shelf Leasing and Development Task Force pressed its review of controversial plans to open up millions of acres of offshore tracts to oil and gas development. Bush appointed the task force March 21 to review those issues and directed it to report back to him next January.