Teapot Dome Scandal Emerges

The Teapot Dome scandal was a political corruption scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Warren G.^¹ Harding. It centered on Albert B. Fall, the interior secretary, who accepted bribes from private oil companies to lease government-owned petroleum reserves that had been set aside by President William Howard Taft to create the Naval Petroleum Reserves.^¹ This was a critical new initiative of the Federal government to ensure that a navy transitioning from coal to oil propulsion would have sufficient stocks of fuel in times of war.^¹