OAKLAND — A state senate committee on Tuesday voted to support a bill requiring a new environmental report on the transport of coal through an Oakland terminal.

The Senate Transportation and Housing Committee voted 7-3 in favor of Sen. Loni Hancock’s Senate Bill 1277.

Tuesday’s hearing in Sacramento was the first of a series of approvals needed. It must also pass through the full state senate and assembly before reaching the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown.

The bill in its current form declares the shipment of coal through West Oakland a health and safety danger to residents and requires a supplemental environmental report in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act.

In her testimony, Hancock argued previous environmental reports in 2002 and 2012 happened before coal was known as a possible commodity to be shipped at the terminal at the former Oakland Army Base, so the ore was not specifically studied.

The $250 million bulk commodities terminal is part of a massive project by prominent developer Phil Tagami and his partners on 366 acres on the Outer Harbor, southeast of the Bay Bridge toll plaza. The project is expected to create 2,000 permanent jobs in Oakland.

If coal is shipped and stored at the Oakland facility, many anticipate it will be carted on trains from Utah through Sacramento, Richmond, Berkeley and Oakland to be shipped to Asia.

Despite its support Tuesday, Hancock’s bill met resistance from senate committee members who were less interested in discussing the health impacts of coal than the precedent the bill could set for local development projects that face opposition.

Sen. Patricia Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, said the bill gives an appearance that the environmental review is only being used to kill the project. Bates, who voted against the bill, said it should be up to Oakland to authorize a new environmental report.

“Let’s use the process the way it was intended and not in a manipulative way,” Bates said.

No Oakland city officials attended the hearing. Hancock said they have been advised to steer clear of the issue by city attorneys, as officials study whether they can stop the coal trains from coming to Oakland.

A 2013 agreement with Tagami did not specifically ban coal from being exported at the terminal and the one way the city could do so would be to declare the shipments a possible health and safety risk to residents.

“Oakland’s not here, I wish they were, I don’t want to fight their battles if they aren’t hear to talk about it,” said Senator Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia.

West Oakland resident Margaret Gordon, Derrick Muhammed of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, environmentalists, Richmond Mayor Tom Butt and Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates spoke in support of the bill. Bates said Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf supports Hancock’s bills.

Representatives from BNSF Railway and the California Building Industry Association and a lawyer representing Tagami’s real estate firm opposed the bill at the hearing.

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David DeBolt covers Oakland. Contact him at 510-208-6453. Follow him at Twitter.com/daviddebolt.