Houston Chronicle: Senators from California, Oregon and Washington united Thursday behind a plan to ban new offshore drilling along the Pacific Coast in response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Their push, which joins a similar House effort with the backing of 20 Democrats, could gain traction in Congress as public outrage grows about the April 20 explosion on an offshore drilling rig near Louisiana that left 11 workers dead and unleashed an oil spill that threatens the Gulf Coast. The Pacific …