House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) says Attorney General Eric Holder should take legal action to force BP to pay royalties on all the oil and natural gas escaping into the Gulf of Mexico.

In a letter to Holder on Wednesday, Rahall notes the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 allows the U.S. to recover damages, including lost royalties, from parties responsible for oil spills.

Rahall’s letter acknowledges that while there is a not a “precise” tally of the volumes pouring from BP’s blown-out well, government estimates suggest at least a half-million barrels of oil and hundreds of millions of cubic feet of gas have been released.

Adm. Thad Allen said BP was able to cut through a riser pipe and will soon attempt to move a containment device into place.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said Obama should send more military assets to the Gulf.

President Barack Obama on Friday will make his third trip to the Gulf Coast since the oil spill began.

It's unlikely that engineers will be able to stem the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico until August, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) suggested Thursday.

Nelson, whose home state of Florida is preparing for oil to reach the beaches of Pensacola, said he has no faith in BP's efforts to end the flow of oil from its damaged deepwater well until relief wells are completed in August.

"Personally, I don't," Nelson said during an appearance on CNN when asked if he has any faith in BP to contain the flow of oil. "I think we're looking at this until August."

President Barack Obama won a defense of his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill from one GOP congressman on Thursday.

Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican lawmaker from Texas, said that people were expecting too much from the president in his ability to react to the ongoing spill into the Gulf.

"I'm a pretty big critic of the president," Paul said during an appearance on "Imus in the Morning" on the Fox Business Network, "but I just don't see the justification for coming down hard on the president."

White House energy and climate adviser Carol Browner is emphasizing that federal officials are calling the shots in BP’s effort to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher.

“It is important, I think, for people to understand that BP cannot do anything without the administration’s agreement, and so if an idea is put forward that our brain trust, our scientists, are not comfortable with, they are told that. They do not proceed,” she told National Public Radio.

“We are not partners,” she added in the interview, broadcast Thursday morning, “because at the end of the day, we get to decide what happens.”