Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).WASHINGTON — A key U.S. Senate panel will take up sweeping legislation to battle global warming starting Oct. 27, weeks before December global climate talks in Copenhagen, the panel’s chairwoman announced Tuesday.

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, said it would open debate on the “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act” after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reviews the bill.

“We expect the EPA’s analysis to be completed in time for legislative hearings later this month,” Boxer said in a statement.

Boxer said witnesses at the Oct. 27 hearing would include Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, and Jon Wellinghoff, Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved energy and climate change legislation in June, and Obama has pressed the Senate to act before the global talks in Denmark’s capital in December.