The Obama administration is giving BP PLC a mixed review on its response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as the oil giant prepares to enter the final phase of killing the Macondo well.

President Obama this morning expressed optimism that the end is near in the well-capping effort during a ceremony congratulating the New Orleans Saints on their Super Bowl victory earlier this year.

"The battle to prevent oil from flowing into the Gulf is just about over," Obama said.

But he added that the response effort is far from finished. The Obamas will travel to the Gulf Coast region later this week for a short vacation as part of an effort to boost tourism there. Obama also served Gulf-region seafood at his birthday party last night in an attempt to quell fears about oil-tainted seafood.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen yesterday gave the company high marks in its engineering response to stopping the spill. BP is slated to enter its final well-killing phase this week if weather cooperates. But the company earned low marks from the government's point man in charge of the response effort in its dealings with people.

Allen told CNN's "State of the Union" yesterday that he is not sure any other company could have done more to cap the spill, but he said BP was too big a company to deal immediately with the victims of the spill.

"It's something they don't naturally have as a capacity or a competency in their company, and it's been very, very hard for them to understand," Allen said yesterday. "That's the lens by which the American people view them. And that's where they need to improve the most."

Obama's top adviser on energy and climate issues said BP will continue to be held fully accountable for the damages caused by the spill, but she stopped short of saying whether the government would pursue criminal negligence charges against BP.

"We're going to remain vigilant," Carol Browner said yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We've got to hold BP accountable for the claims, for the damages to the environment."

BP, which has already paid out more than $6 billion for the cleanup and containment effort, today said it had put $3 billion in a trust as a first step toward creating a $20 billion claims account it agreed to fund under White House pressure.

But in addition to those funds, Browner said BP will owe a significant penalty as a result of the spill. Under current law, penalty fees are paid to the Treasury Department. But Browner indicated the administration would be willing to share that revenue with the states affected by the spill, a concern of several oil-state Democrats.

"I think that makes a lot of sense," Browner said of the senators' proposals to share 80 percent of that revenue with the states. Obama "absolutely supports the notion of returning it to the region."

Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska) have both called for revenue-sharing language in energy and oil spill-response bill. Begich has promised to offer up a revenue-sharing proposal in September, and Landrieu has included one in oil spill-response language (S. 3763) she floated last week. Landrieu has said she will not vote for any spill-response legislation that does not bring relief to Gulf states.

But for now, all eyes are focused on the relief well that is slated to start intercepting the failed wellbore later this week in BP's final attempt to plug the well for good.

Weather could delay that timeline, Allen said this morning. Federal scientists are keeping a close eye on a storm system over Florida as well as a separate storm in the Atlantic Ocean.

If a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast and whips up oil from BP's spill, response workers may not be able to immediately clean up the mess, the Associated Press reported, because of a new Obama administration edict requiring that the oil be tested before it is cleaned.

The extra step is designed to help the government get reimbursed if a hurricane pushes oil from the Gulf of Mexico onshore. But it could also cause frustrating cleanup delays and could prevent residents from returning home while the government decides who pays the bill.

The Obama administration's response plan says cleanup workers must determine where the oil came from and who should pay for it "prior to removal of contaminated debris."

BP's runaway well is not the only source of oil in the Gulf, which is also home to thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells.

But local officials and other interested individuals are outraged.

Charlotte Randolph, president of Lafourche Parish, La., said her community will insist that BP's contractors clean up after a hurricane, regardless of the federal government's plan.

"The assumption will be that the oil belongs to BP," Randolph told the Associated Press. "I don't care what the federal government says."

BP may drill again in same field

The British oil giant has not ruled out the possibility of drilling again in the same reservoir that gushed millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico this summer, a company official said last week.

"There's a lot of oil and gas here," Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said Friday. "We're going to have to think about what to do with that at some point."

Officials have promised that the relief wells poised to intercept the failed wellbore won't be used to tap into the reservoir itself. But the company could drill another well from a nearby location, industry experts say.

Moratorium challenges head back to court

Legal scrutiny of the Obama administration's drilling ban resumes this week in federal court in New Orleans.

The judge who overturned the administration's original six-month moratorium will hear arguments Wednesday from the government, which wants the lawsuit filed by Hornbeck Offshore Services Inc. over the original six-month moratorium dismissed.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar imposed a six-month drilling ban in late May, but U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman struck it down in June. Salazar issued a revised ban on July 12 that is expected to block most drilling through November.

Feldman will preside over a separate hearing later this month in a suit filed by Ensco Offshore Co. that seeks to overturn the July 12 order.

Rescuers finding more oiled animals than before

Wildlife officials say they are rounding up more oiled birds than ever three weeks after BP capped its Gulf of Mexico well.

Before BP capped the well on July 15, an average of 37 oiled birds, dead and alive, were collected each day. Since then, the figure has doubled to 71 per day, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Fledgling birds are getting stuck in residual goo, and rescuers are making initial visits to rookeries they had avoided during nesting season.

The number of oiled turtles has also increased. More oiled turtles were recovered in the past 10 days than during the spill's first three months.