Part of the personnel were German scientists, who had been extracted from Germany by Operation Paperclip.
In 1953 the new Republican-led House Appropriations Committee ended funding for the research and the Missouri plant was returned to the Department of the Army.
After the 1973 oil crisis the need for domestic syncrude production (as well as substitute natural gas) was recognized and ERDA (subsequently DOE) embarked on a demonstration plants program, which included plants for the SRC-I and SRC-2 processes.
In 1986, following the 1985 oil glut, President Reagan signed into law the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 which among other things abolished the Synthetic Fuels Corporation.
[citation needed] It is estimated that over 40 years the cost of the various efforts at creating synthetic fuels may have totaled as much as $8 billion.