WASHINGTON - The House Republican budget plan unveiled Tuesday would force the Obama administration to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and assumes that expanded oil and gas drilling on federal lands would deliver billions of dollars to federal coffers.

The spending blueprint, outlined by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in a 91-page document dubbed "The Path to Prosperity," aims to use domestic energy development to help pare $4.6 trillion from the federal budget over the next 10 years.

"America has the world's largest natural gas, oil and coal reserves - enough natural gas to meet the country's needs for 90 years," Ryan said in a Wall Street Journal piece outlining the plan. "Our budget opens these lands to development, so families will have affordable energy."

The Obama administration is expected to offer its own budget plan next month.

For both parties, the budget documents are a way to telegraph top legislative priorities, so the Republicans' decision to include Keystone XL reveals the weight the GOP is putting on the $7 billion TransCanada Corp. project that would deliver diluted bitumen harvested in Alberta's oil sands to refineries along the Gulf Coast.

Its northern leg requires State Department approval because it would cross an international border.

The administration rejected a permit for the border-crossing pipeline last year, after the State Department concluded it needed to do more environmental analysis of a new route through Nebraska. After conducting a fresh environmental study, the State Department on March 1 concluded that the project is unlikely to boost demand for Canada's oil sands significantly, rebutting a major concern voiced by environmentalists opposed to the pipeline.

The Republican budget document links more than 20,000 direct jobs to the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and says it would generate an additional $5.2 billion in property taxes along the route during its life.

Critics of the project say the heavy oil delivered to the Gulf Coast ultimately would be refined and exported, so the effect on domestic gasoline prices is likely to be slim. And they take issue with job projections they say are inflated.

'False job numbers'

"Ryan is citing false job numbers from the oil industry that have even been refuted by TransCanada," said Jane Kleeb, a Nebraska landowner who has battled the pipeline. The State Department has projected that the pipeline ultimately will translate into 35 permanent jobs.

Supporters say Keystone XL would ensure a source of heavy crude for U.S. refineries from a North American ally, displacing supplies from Venezuela and declining imports from Mexico.

The Republican budget also takes aim at subsidies for green energy programs, once again invoking the stimulus-funded loans to the solar panel maker Solyndra and the bankruptcy of A123 Systems, a battery maker that received federal support.

"The administration continues to penalize economically competitive sources of energy and to reward their uncompetitive alternatives," the GOP budget plan says, adding that the government should expand oil and natural gas development on federal lands.

Oil incentives excluded

Although the GOP plan would cut government funding for clean energy programs, it doesn't make the case for spiking tax incentives enjoyed by the oil and gas industry, including deductions for drilling costs.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the Republican budget proposal an "extreme" plan that would "continue to tilt the playing field to the advantage of big corporate interests" while gutting investments in "scientific research and job-creating clean energy technology."