Enactment of Public Law 290 by the 78th Congress authorized the U.S, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, to conduct an experimental program to develop the technology for obtaining oil from oil shale. In adopting and later extending this legislation, the Congress recognized the impending necessity of supplementing ground petroleum reserves with synthetic fuels. Under the provisions of this legislation, the Bureau of Mines, among other things, was charged with the responsibility of developing mining techniques, methods and equipment for mining the oil shales of the Green River formation of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.