Teapot Dome Scandal, also called Oil Reserves Scandal or Elk Hills Scandal, in American history, scandal of the early 1920s surrounding the secret leasing of federal oil reserves by the secretary of the interior, Albert Bacon Fall. After U.S. Pres. Warren G. Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil-reserve lands from the navy to the Department of the Interior in 1921, Fall secretly granted to Harry F. Sinclair of the Mammoth Oil Company exclusive rights to the Teapot Dome (Wyoming) reserves (April 7, 1922). He granted similar rights to Edward L. Doheny of Pan American Petroleum Company for the Elk