Congressman Paul Tonko represents New York’s 20th Congressional District, including the communities of Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga Springs and Amsterdam. He represents all of Albany and Schenectady Counties and parts of Montgomery, Rensselaer and Saratoga Counties.
He is serving his seventh term, after first being sworn into Congress in 2009.
Paul serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the oldest standing committee in the House, created in December of 1795. He is the first Upstate New York Democratic member to serve on the committee since Leo O'Brien, who resigned the post in October 1966. He was elected by his peers in the 116th Congress to chair the Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change. He was also selected to continue his service on the Science, Space and Technology Committee, as well as on the Natural Resources Committee.
We became the best nation in the world by providing our educators and parents with the tools they need to raise the leaders of tomorrow. Today, we have a great need for more graduates who are educated in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) disciplines. I fully support the White House’s Educate to Innovate initiative that will move American students to the top of the list when it comes to STEM training. In Congress, I have worked with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to introduce legislation that boosts engineering education in schools, the Educating Tomorrow’s Engineers Act, or the ETEA.