Teapot Dome scandal Teapot Dome scandal The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery scandal involving the administration of United States President Warren G. Harding from 19211923. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming, and two locations in California, to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. The leases were the subject of a sensational investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. Convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies, Fall became the first presidential cabinet member to go to prison; no one was convicted of paying the bribes. Before the Watergate scandal,
History of oil in California through 1930 in the American economy and political arena. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge created the Federal Oil Conservation Board in an effort to control oil production and stabilize the oil market. However, The American Petroleum Institute (API), representing over 500 oil companies, opposed the program because it feared many of its affiliated oil corporations would go out of business. Ultimately, through API’s resistance, Coolidge’s program never gained sufficient power. In 1929, however, the sense of crisis in the oil market grew as vast amounts of oil supplies were going unused in Southern California and throughout the US. The API reversed its