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,
Oil shale in Australia in 1910 and ceased in 1935, producing a total of . In 1924, the Australian Shale Oil Corporation was established for construction of a Bronder retort and oil treatment plant at Latrobe, but the operation was not a success and the company was liquidated in 1931. Other Tasmanian oil shale operations were carried out by the Railton-Latrobe Oil Shale Company, the Southern Cross Motor Fuels Company, and the Tasmanian Cement Company. After the 1973 oil crisis, several companies explored the oil shale resources of Eastern Queensland; however, these activities diminished by 1986 after a drop in oil prices. Starting in