McConnell sharply criticizes Obama's climate change deal with China As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) welcomed nine newly elected Republican senators to Capitol Hill, he spoke out about an agreement President Obama reached in China on climate change. Well, that didn't take long. Any hope for Congress to reconvene with a sense of bipartisanship was erased pretty quickly on Wednesday morning as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) sharply criticized the announcement of a new climate deal between the United States and China. McConnell made his comments during a morning coffee with 10 new Republican senators in his office off the Senate floor. As his new colleagues stood beaming, McConnell was asked by a pack of reporters if he planned to shift the Senate to the political middle in hopes of reaching accord with President Obama and Democrats. "The president continues to send a signal that he has no intention of moving toward the middle," McConnell said. McConnell's home state of Kentucky is heavily dependent on its coal industry and he made his criticisms of the Obama administration's carbon emission and climate change policies central themes of his reelection campaign. He said the scene was much more encouraging than during the lame-duck session of 2006, when Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) was the only GOP senator elected that year. That made Corker "the president, Vice President, secretary and treasurer" of the Republican incoming class that year, McConnell quipped. As reporters remained outside McConnell's office after the brief photo opportunity, Sen.-elect Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the only incoming Democratic senator, sneaked by on his way to a similar meeting with Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). Appearing lost, Peters asked a Washington Post reporter directions to Reid's office off the Senate chamber.