As oil continues to seep into the Gulf of Mexico, political debate on the handling of the spill has flowed into the halls of Congress and onto the campaign trail.

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, joined a chorus of politicians criticizing remarks made by Arlington Republican Joe Barton, who apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward during a Thursday hearing.

Barton called the White House negotiations with BP to create a $20 billion compensation fund for Gulf Coast residents damaged by the spill a “shakedown.” He referred to the account as a “slush fund.”

Republican Bill Flores (left) is challenging U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, in the fall.

Facing withering criticism from Democratic and Republican leaders alike, Barton, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, retracted his apology and said, “I apologize for using the word ‘shakedown.’ ”

When asked about the comments, a spokesman for Edwards’ GOP opponent, Bill Flores, said, “Bill agrees that Barton was right to retract his comments.”

But while Edwards and Flores agreed on Barton, they were at odds on several other spill-related issues.

Edwards’ campaign issued a release Thursday criticizing Flores for remarks in a TV interview that Edwards said were overly supportive of BP.

Flores, a retired oil and gas company executive, told a Bryan TV reporter he thought BP had done “a reasonably good job in trying to kill that well under very adverse circumstances,” before going on to criticize the cleanup efforts.

Edwards attacked the remark and repeated his criticism of an earlier Flores comment cautioning against immediate congressional hearings.

“Bill Flores is dead wrong when he says BP is doing a ‘reasonably good job,’ and Flores is dead wrong when he says Congress shouldn’t be holding hearings now on the BP tragedy,” Edwards said.

He said this week’s congressional hearings uncovered oil companies’ flawed disaster response plans and called hearings “an important way to hold BP accountable and protect the American people.”

Flores spokesman Matt Mackowiak said Edwards was using the disaster “for his own political benefit.” He said Edwards repeatedly had taken Flores’ words out of context.

Flores called BP’s response plan “woefully inadequate” in the interview, but he reserved his most stinging criticisms for the government, which he accused of ignoring the spill and using the disaster to gin up good press before finally trying to contain the spill.

Flores added that the government had made a bad situation worse by putting in place a “six-month, so-called temporary moratorium on deep-water drilling,” adding that the move would have “a hugely adverse impact on jobs in Texas and Louisiana.”

Mackowiak said Edwards supported a drilling moratorium, though Edwards said that was not the case.

“I do not support the Obama administration’s six-month moratorium,” he said, “and I met with Interior Secretary (Ken) Salazar to try to change that moratorium and to also ensure that shallow-water wells are not impacted by a slowdown in the regulatory process.”

Edwards said he supports a short-term halt on new deep-water wells until new safety standards are in place, a position he said is shared by several oil industry executives.

mshapiro@wacotrib.com

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