Oil shale research activities at the Anvil Points Facility, located near Rifle, Colorado, began in the mid-1940's, and government-sponsored research has been intermittent there since that time. The Bureau of Mines'gas combustion retorting technology was developed at the facility. In the mid-1960's the Bureau of Mines (which later became the Energy Research and Development Administration and the Department of Energy built two small (10- and 150-ton) batch-type retorts near Laramie, Wyoming. These facilities were used to research in situ processing variables of oil shale. Variables such as active void volume, shale assay and size, and processing parameters have been studied. In the late 1970's, the US government sponsored four large in situ demonstration projects in Western Oil Shale: Occidental, Geokinetics, Inc., Equity, and Talley-Frac. At the present, approximately 24 major companies are at some level of effort in developing an oil shale industry. Major private companies, as well as government-sponsored projects, are developing western and eastern shales. Some 22 major efforts are involved with western shales, and 7 are involved with eastern shales. In FY 1984, the Oil Shale Program was restructured to understand the oil shale conversion phenomena so that advanced concepts for the production of liquids from shale could be developed. The restructuring is a refocusing from process development to a more fundamental approach to research. The principal participants in the new program are: Laramie Project Office, Morgantown Energy Technology Center, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, Western Research Institute, and selected universities and private industry. Program accomplishments are presented for these participants.