The US Senate will take up two sweeping global warming bills in January, in the latest sign that Barack Obama's election could quickly reverse years of US footdragging on climate change.

Democratic Senators, openly gleeful that years of fierce struggles against George W. Bush's Republican administration on the issue were drawing to a close, proclaimed the United States would undergo a "sea change" in environmental policy.

"The time to start is now," said Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, vowing to step up to Obama's challenge to combat climate change and create millions of "green jobs" in the reeling US economy.

Her intervention came two days after Democrat Obama, in one of the few public policy pronouncements since his historic victory two weeks ago, told the world that "denial" would no longer be the US policy on climate change.

Boxer, chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, said one bill would combat harmful gas emissions by providing 15 billion dollars a year to spur clean energy innovation and the development of advanced biofuels.

The other piece of legislation will direct the US Environmental Protection Agency to set up a cap-and-trade system to stem greenhouse gas emissions.

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