Conference Call with Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY)
Chairman of the House of Representatives, Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere

Rep. Eliot Engel

Congressman Engel serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee including the Subcommittees on Health, and Energy and the Environment. He also serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee and is the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, as well as serving on the Subcommittee on Europe, and the Subcommittee on the Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment. In addition he serves as Vice Chair of the Democratic Task Force on Homeland Security. He is the founder and Co-Chair of the House Oil and National Security Caucus, which is seeking clean, energy efficient alternatives to America's over-reliance on oil. He is also a member of the Democratic Task Force on Health and serves on the House Caucuses on Human Rights and the Hudson Valley.

During his political career, Congressman Engel has championed affordable housing, real healthcare reform and education for all Americans. He was a leader in passing legislation to protect the Highlands, millions of acres running through New York, including large portions of Rockland and Westchester Counties. Congressman Engel has called for balancing the budget by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and reforming the Alternative Minimum Tax that is hurting so many middle class New York families.

Congressman Engel is the author the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, which successfully sparked international pressure on Syria to withdraw from Lebanon, and sponsored a key resolution recognizing Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. He has written important laws relating to Albania and Kosova, Cyprus, Irish affairs, and is co-author of the Harkin-Engel Protocol, which addresses the child slave labor in the cocoa fields of Africa.

Congressman Engel was born in the Bronx on February 18, 1947. He grew up in a city housing project and attended New York City public schools. In 1969, he graduated from Hunter-Lehman College with a B.A. in History and received a Master's Degree in Guidance and Counseling in 1973 from Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York. In 1987, he received a law degree from New York Law School.

For twelve years prior to his election to Congress, Mr. Engel served in the New York State Assembly (1977-1988), where he chaired the Committee on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, as well as the Subcommittee on Mitchell-Lama Housing. Prior to that, he was a teacher and guidance counselor in the New York City public school system.

A lifelong resident of the Bronx, Congressman Engel is married to Patricia Ennis Engel. They have three children, Julia, Jonathan and Philip.

Source:http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=5200417&ct=7056501&tr=y&auid=4942514