WASHINGTON (AP) - A sweeping wilderness bill affecting 300,000 acres of Northern California forests, mountains and coastline is needed to shield some of the region's most spectacular areas from development, California lawmakers said. "The area is absolutely beautiful, it's breathtaking, it needs to be protected," Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, said Wednesday at a Senate Energy Committee subcommittee hearing on the legislation. Thompson's Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act, sponsored in the Senate by California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, would designate 300,000 acres in California's northern coastal counties as wilderness lands. The areas include portions of the...