California
The clues from the text are "one state south" and "sea side". There are only a few states one state south of Oregon: Nevada and California. Nevada is landlocked which means it does not have any access to the ocean. Therefore, your answer must be California. California's entire Western border is on the ocean.
Based on the given dialogue above, the discussion technique that Daniel is clearly showing is challenging established ideas. The answer would be option A. What makes me say that this is challenging established ideas is that, the news presented above is already released in the media, and therefore, this makes the ideas established. Now, just according to Daniel's observation, he is trying to question the ideas that are given in the news. Hope this helps.
He said that apothecary was poor, and that if they needed money to sell him the potion to not strave.