IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v44y1984i02p381-391_03.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Political Allocation of Mineral Rights: A Re–Evaluation of Teapot Dome

Author

Listed:
  • Libecap, Gary D.

Abstract

This paper re–examines the naval reserve oil leases issued by Interior Secretary Fall in 1922 that led to the Teapot Dome controversy. The analysis shows that the leases were the only efficient oil rights arrangement on federal lands through 1930. They were superior to either the naval oil storage policy practiced prior to 1922 or to the general leasing practices found on other federal land. Nevertheless, they were attacked by conservation groups and small oil firms and cancelled in 1922. To explain the opposition to the leases, this paper examines interagency and interest group rivalries for control of federal land. During the period preceding Teapot Dome, the federal government began withholding title to vast tracts of land, and issues of agency jurisdiction and interest group access had not been resolved. The paper concludes that Teapot Dome had little to do with oil conservation and more to do with settling jurisdictional disputes over federal land. The Teapot Dome controversy led to the establishment of the Federal Oil Conservation Board.

Suggested Citation

  • Libecap, Gary D., 1984. "The Political Allocation of Mineral Rights: A Re–Evaluation of Teapot Dome," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(2), pages 381-391, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:44:y:1984:i:02:p:381-391_03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050700031995/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gerard, David, 1998. "The development of first-possession rules in US mining, 1872-1920: theory, evidence, and policy implications," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 251-264, December.
    2. Li, Yiming & Li, Changqing, 2019. "Fossil energy subsidies in China's modern coal chemical industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:44:y:1984:i:02:p:381-391_03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.