By Tom Doggett and Chris Baltimore

WASHINGTON, June 20 (Reuters) - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist promised on Monday the Senate will vote on a broad energy bill later this week, even though lawmakers have yet to begin debating a contentious plan that would require U.S. companies to cut emissions linked to global warming.

"We are going to finish the bill this week," Frist announced on the Senate floor.

Completing the Senate energy bill by Friday will help keep Congress on track to meet President George W. Bush's goal of having Congress send him a final energy package by Aug. 1.

The House of Representatives passed its energy legislation in April, and leaders of both chambers want to spend July working out differences in the bills.

On Tuesday, the Senate is expected to begin debating several proposals to address rising global temperatures linked to emissions of greenhouse gases. The United States is the world's biggest emitter of the heat-trapping gases.

The most sweeping option, from Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman, would require an outright cut in U.S. carbon dioxide output to 2000 levels by 2010.

The McCain-Lieberman plan, which was defeated in the Senate nearly two years ago with a 55-43 vote, would also create a program for companies to buy and sell carbon emission allowances.

Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico has crafted what is seen as a compromise plan, based on recommendations a few months ago from a bipartisan energy study. His approach would aim to slow the growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by linking them to U.S. economic growth.

The Bingaman plan would launch a trading program with a pool of emissions permits that would shrink about 2.4 percent annually beginning in 2010.

Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the Republican chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, is considering whether to throw his support behind Bingaman's plan, which is opposed by the White House.

Environmental groups say the chances of Senate action on global warming are higher than ever, although none could handicap which proposal might win.

"McCain-Lieberman is definitely picking up steam and Senator Bingaman's proposal is the wild card," said Jeremy Symons at the National Wildlife Federation.

"This is an amazing development, given that the leader of the party, President Bush, refuses to do anything about the problem," said Kevin Curtis at the National Environmental Trust.

Separately, Domenici said he also expects an amendment will be offered to strip from the bill language that calls for the government to conduct a survey of estimated oil and natural gas reserve in offshore waters where drilling in banned near Florida and other states.

Opponents to the survey fear it could eventually lead to opening those waters to energy exploration.

Lawmakers on Monday added to the bill a $14.1 billion package of energy tax breaks and financial incentives over 10 years. The financial package will help promote alternative energy sources, which are aimed at easing future U.S. energy shortages and reduce America's reliance on crude oil imports. The tax package is more than double the $6.7 billion limit the White House had wanted.

The Senate also debated a Democratic proposal to ease some of the price pressure at the gasoline pump by requiring the government to suspend adding crude to the nation's emergency oil stockpile when oil prices are high.

Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota offered the plan as U.S. crude oil futures soared to a new record of $59.52 a barrel. Under the plan, crude deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve could resume after the price fell below $40 a barrel for 10 consecutive trading days.

The emergency reserve, created by Congress in the mid-1970s after the Arab oil embargo, is just 4.4 million barrels short of the Bush administration's goal to fill the stockpile to 700 million barrels.    

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