Orange County elected leaders, businesses, environmentalists and community members spoke out loudly against the U.S. Department of Interior’s offshore oil and gas drilling proposal at a people’s hearing event in Costa Mesa on Monday, Dec. 8.
More than 100 people attended the event organized by Orange County Coastkeeper, Surfrider Foundation and Oceana.
The event began with a presentation on the federal proposal to open the entire California coast, the Gulf of America, Alaska and the Arctic to new offshore oil and gas leasing with instructions on how to submit official comments to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management before the deadline on Jan. 23, 2026…