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 reserves in the United States from in 1970 to in 2007, before declining. Its largest net suppliers of petroleum products in 2007 were Canada and Mexico, which supplied , respectively. As of 2011, the US consumed 18.8 million barrels of petroleum products per day, and imported a net 8.4 million barrels per day; the EIA reported the United States "Dependence on Net Petroleum Imports" in 2011 as 45%. During 2008-2009 the USA became a net exporter of refined oil products; before the US bought gasoline, diesel and kerosene in Europe, and smaller amounts from other countries. The United States maintains a Strategic Petroleum Reserve at