Ryan: GOP budget would reduce gas prices

WASHINGTON, April 1 (UPI) -- Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Sunday the budget he authored, which has been passed by the House, would promote oil exploration in the United States.

Ryan said on ABC's "This Week," the country should not beg Saudi Arabia for oil, but instead should increase oil production on public lands locked by President Barack Obama.

"Let's open up the Keystone pipeline to bring Canadian oil into our country to dramatically reduce our dependency on foreign oil," Ryan said. "It creates jobs here in America. It lowers gas prices, increases supply. And just by passing this legislation, you'll improve the prices in the futures market, because you'll see that all this new American-made energy is coming online.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said on "This Week" people should not blame Obama for the nearly doubled cost of gasoline since the president's election, because "there are lots of factors that go into gas and oil prices."

"You have got a lot of speculation in the oil markets driven in part because of what's happening in the Persian Gulf. The president has reached out to other oil-producing countries around the world. And they have got a strategy now to get more oil on the market. That should drive down prices. It should begin to pop that speculative bubble," Van Hollen said.

"And I would point out, part of the Republican budget would strip funding from the one cop on the beat that we have right now, the [U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission], that is supposed to prevent massive and excessive speculation in the marketplace," he added.