Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Democrats began committee debate on legislation to limit greenhouse gas-emissions as Republicans sought to delay action by boycotting the panel’s meeting.

All but one Republican skipped the start of the meeting, demanding a more complete study on the measure’s economic costs by the Environmental Protection Agency. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the panel’s ranking Republican, led the boycott.

Democrat Barbara Boxer of California, chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, recessed the work session to bring in an EPA official to answer questions. No Republicans attended that part of the hearing.

“There is no reason, no reason at all, to do additional analysis and spend more taxpayers’ dollars doing it when the work has been done,” Boxer said. “Now is the time for us to act on national clean-energy legislation.”

The Senate bill, sponsored by Boxer and Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts, aims to shift the U.S. to a more clean- energy economy. It would cap global warming pollution from power plants, factories and other large sources of greenhouse- gas emissions and create a market for companies to buy and sell a limited number of pollution credits.

Neither side budged at the end of the first day of work sessions to amend the legislation.

‘Very Hopeful’

“We are not going to do anything until we have the comprehensive analysis,” Inhofe told reporters.

Boxer said she was “very hopeful” Republicans would return tomorrow. She refused to set a deadline for the committee to finish work.

Boxer cited a letter she and Inhofe received from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yesterday that urged the Senate to move ahead with climate-change legislation “in a bipartisan manner that garners strong business-community support.”

Even without Republican participation, “we think we can vote a bill out of this committee,” Boxer told reporters.

Republicans say that under committee rules, at least two members of their party must be present for the panel to have a quorum to amend legislation before a final vote. Boxer said she plans to proceed and be “patient.”

Senator George Voinovich of Ohio was the only Republican to attend the start of the meeting. He said the EPA briefing won’t be enough and that a more extensive study is needed. He left after explaining the Republican position.

‘Critical Importance’

“I agree with you that climate change and how our nation addresses it is of critical importance,” he said. “I don’t ever recall finding meaningful solutions with incomplete information and stark partisanship.”

Voinovich said debating the bill is “premature” because Republicans haven’t had enough time to read it and prepare amendments.

Boxer has said the EPA spent five weeks analyzing a bill approved by the House in June, plus another two weeks factoring in the Senate plan, which she said is 90 percent similar to the House measure. The EPA study showed the Senate bill would cost the average household about $80 to $111 a year.

David McIntosh, an EPA associate administrator, said the study exceeds what is usually undertaken at this stage, and any further examination would be outdated once the bill is amended and combined with measures in other committees.

Study Planned

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, plans a full study of the legislation when all committees’ bills are combined, Boxer said.

“I don’t know what more she can do” to get the Republicans to return, Reid told reporters, referring to Boxer.

Kerry, who is working to build bipartisan support in the full Senate, told reporters that Democrats also want a full cost analysis once Reid combines the bills from six committees.

“We need the numbers so that we have a solid, sound, understandable and defensible piece of legislation,” he said.

Kerry said it is possible for Reid to have a combined bill by the end of the year that could then be analyzed for several weeks before it goes to the full Senate.

The committee took a break to attend a joint session of Congress, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel told lawmakers there’s “no time to lose” in the fight against global warming.

“The world will be looking at us, at Europe and America,” during the United Nations’ December meeting in Copenhagen to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change after it expires in 2012, Merkel said.

President Barack Obama and many Democrats in Congress say climate legislation will cut pollution and spark billions of dollars in private investment in clean energy and job creation.

Most Republicans and some Democrats from coal-producing and manufacturing states have expressed concern, saying the legislation would raise energy costs for businesses and consumers and harm the economy.

To contact the reporter on this story: Catherine Dodge in Washington at Cdodge1@bloomberg.net; Simon Lomax in Washington at slomax@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 3, 2009 18:01 EST