“Make no mistake,” Ms. Murkowski said in a floor statement, “if Congress allows this to happen there will be severe consequences.” She said businesses would be forced to close or move overseas, domestic energy production would be curtailed, housing would become more expensive and agricultural costs would rise.

Image Senator Lisa Murkowski is challenging the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency. Credit... Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Her resolution requires a majority vote in the Senate, a remote possibility because of the strong opposition of the Democratic leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, and most other Democrats. It faces even longer odds in the House. And then it would require the signature of President Obama, who is all but certain to veto it because it would rob him of a critical regulatory tool.

Ms. Murkowski said that the Obama administration was using the threat of E.P.A. regulation to force Congress to move quickly on broad energy and climate-change legislation, including a complex cap-and-trade program to limit carbon-dioxide pollution.

Ms. Murkowski, the senior Republican on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, has nearly unanimous Republican support in addition to the backing of the three Democrats: Senators Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Her effort was applauded by a broad swath of industry, agriculture and energy lobbies, which fear the prospect of what they consider capricious and heavy-handed regulation by the E.P.A.