Six weeks after the catastrophe began, oil giant BP PLC is still casting about for at least a temporary fix to the spewing well underneath the Gulf that's fouling beaches, wildlife and marshland.

The relief wells currently being drilled — which are supposed to be a better long-term solution — won't be done for at least two months. That would be in the middle of the Atlantic hurricane season, which begins Tuesday. The crude likely won't affect the formation of storms, but the cyclones could push the oil deeper into coastal marshes and estuaries and turn the oil into a crashing black surf.

BP said Saturday that the procedure known as the "top kill" failed after engineers tried for three days to overwhelm the crippled well with heavy drilling mud and junk 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) underwater.

Robert Dudley, BP's managing director, said on "Fox News Sunday" that company officials were disappointed that they "failed to wrestle this beast to the ground." But skepticism is growing that BP can solve the crisis.

Rep. Ed Markey, who leads a congressional committee investigating the disaster, told CBS television's "Face the Nation" on Sunday that he had "no confidence whatsoever in BP." "So I don't think that people should really believe what BP is saying in terms of the likelihood of anything that they're doing is going to turn out as they're predicting," the Massachusetts Democrat said.

Now, BP hopes to saw through a pipe leading out from the well and cap it with a funnel-like device using the same remotely guided undersea robots that have failed in other tries to stop the gusher. Even that effort won't end the disaster — BP officials have only pledged it will capture a majority of the oil. None of the remaining options would stop the flow entirely or capture all the crude before it reaches the Gulf's waters.

Engineers will use remotely guided undersea robots to try to lower a cap onto the leak after cutting off part of a busted pipe leading out from the well. The funnel-like device is similar to a huge containment box that failed before when it became clogged with icelike slush. Dudley said officials learned a lot from that failure and will pump warm water through the pipes to prevent the ice problems.

The spill is the worst in US history — exceeding even the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster — and has dumped between 18 million gallons and 40 million gallons into the Gulf, according to government estimates. The leak began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 people.