Although the public progress of the Senate attempt to write a comprehensive climate change energy bill has ground to a halt because of a protest by one of its chief sponsors, an outline of the bill’s major provisions is moving forward.

A draft of the measure being written by Senators John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts; Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina; and Joseph I. Lieberman, Independent of Connecticut, was sent to the Environmental Protection Agency today for analysis. Although the senators did not release the draft and no formal legislative language exists yet, the E.P.A. modeling is a crucial step that must be completed before the bill can be brought to the Senate floor for debate.

The three senators were scheduled to unveil their proposal on Monday, but their news conference was called off after Mr. Graham protested the Senate leadership’s apparent intention to debate immigration policy first, a move he called a cynical election-year maneuver.

But Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lieberman continued to refine their draft and considered it to be complete enough to undergo at least a preliminary analysis of economic costs and environmental benefits by E.P.A. experts. The Congressional Budget Office and the Energy Information Administration are also expected to analyze the bill, when it is ready.

The proposal attempts to reduce emissions of climate-altering gases by 17 percent from 2005’s levels by 2020 using a variety of means for different sectors of the economy. Their efforts have won the tentative support of a number of major corporations, environmental organizations, unions and faith groups, but no one has seen their actual proposal, and a number of important industry associations are withholding any endorsement.

The E.P.A. analysis is expected to take four to six weeks.