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,
Offshore oil and gas in the United States of the 1969 spill, which is entirely within the federal zone. See "Offshore oil and gas in the US Gulf of Mexico" The western and central Gulf of Mexico, which includes offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, is one of the major petroleum-producing areas of the United States. In 2007, federal leases in the western and central Gulf of Mexico produced 25% of the nation's oil and 14% of the nation's natural gas. In 2008, federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico produced of oil, down from in 2002; however, due to new deep-water discoveries, the MMS projects that oil