The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the legislation by an all-Democratic 11-1 vote that forecasts a long, hard, road before the bill can clear the US Congress and President Barack Obama can sign it into law.

"Today's step in the process sends a clear message to the world that the United States is serious about tackling climate change and securing our clean energy future," said Democratic Senator John Kerry, the measure's lead author.

Five other Senate committees have jurisdiction over the legislation, and identical versions must clear the Senate and House of Representatives -- and Democrats have mostly abandoned hopes of wrapping up the process before December global climate change talks in Denmark's capital Copenhagen.

"This is and has always been a big lift, but heading into Copenhagen, we have momentum on our side," said Kerry, who has argued that US lawmakers must make as much progress as possible before the UN-backed summit next month.

Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, the environment committee's chairperson, said after the vote she was "pleased that despite the Republican boycott we have been able to move this bill forward."

The House of Representatives in June narrowly passed a bill that calls for cutting US greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and by 83 percent by 2050.

The Senate's slightly more ambitious bill calls for a 20-percent cut by 2020. Both bills would create a cap-and-trade regime, aimed at setting the total level of domestic emissions allowable and then allocating quotas to companies.

Firms that emit less than their quota would be allowed to sell their surplus allocation to others that exceed theirs. Those in excess could also face fines.

Republicans, who boycotted the deliberations for three straight days, said they would oppose the bill until they had a "comprehensive analysis" of its cost and effects from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

"We still are asking for the same thing," Senator James Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the committee and the only Republican to show up on Thursday, said in a two-minute declaration.

But Boxer said further analysis by the agency was not necessary, and maintained that the EPA's environmental impact assessment of the House-passed bill was sufficient.

"We found that, after questioning the EPA extensively, that the Republicans' demand for another EPA analysis now would be duplicative and a waste of taxpayer dollars," she said.

Committee proceedings typically call for the presence of at least two members of the minority party, but Boxer sidestepped the boycott using parliamentary procedures that allowed her to pass the bill by a simple majority of members present, a tactic Republicans decried as a "nuclear option."

"What they're doing is highly unusual. And what we're doing in response is highly unusual," she said earlier, adding that her actions were completely "by the Senate rules."

Republicans have criticized the Democrats' bill as doing too little to promote nuclear energy and is likely to lead to a spike in energy prices.

One Democrat, centrist senator Max Baucus, who serves as the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, broke with his party as the lone Democrat to vote against the bill, saying that its goals for reducing greenhouse emission levels were too ambitious.

Opposition from Baucus is also expected to complicate passage of the bill in the Senate, where Democrats need 60 votes to ensure the ability to break through parliamentary delaying tactics and pass the legislation.

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