WASHINGTON While the media focuses most of its attention on U.S. Senate consideration of health-care reform legislation, that bodys cap-and-trade bill has been cleared for floor action.

Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the cap-and-trade bill that opponents say would - among other things -- cause a spike in the cost of diesel fuel. The committee approval cleared the way for the legislation to move to the Senate floor.

Senate leaders say they hope the final legislation will gain bipartisan support, but that seems unlikely. Senate Republicans boycotted the committee vote, calling the bill a "jobs killer."

The bill would limit greenhouse gas emissions of mostly large energy users through a cap-and-trade program, which would require them to comply with greenhouse gas emissions reduction mandates by purchasing allowances. Overall, the bills goal is to reduce greenhouse gas levels by 2020 to 20 percent below 2005 levels.

The measure would not immediately require the transportation sector to limit carbon emissions.

However, Republicans, some Democrats and other opponents of the bill said it is, in effect, a tax on refiners and other energy producers because it requires them to buy credits that would be passed on to customers as an increase in fuel prices.

One widely circulated estimate is that the bill would increase the price of diesel fuel by as much as 88 cents a gallon.

That estimate is supported by a report by two U.S. senators who say a cap-and-trade policy -- like that contained in climate change legislation passed by the U.S. House earlier this year -- would send diesel fuel prices soaring.

Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Kit Bond, R-Mo., said the cap-and-trade provision in the House-passed Waxman-Markey climate change bill would assess $3.6 trillion in higher fuel costs on American families and businesses, including $1.3 trillion in diesel fuel prices.

Proponents of cap-and-trade believe that increasing the price of fuel will encourage the use of more fuel-efficient vehicles or alternative-fueled vehicles, but neither the bus nor the trucking industry have any such options.