Politics

Fact-Checking Marco Rubio's New Book

WUSF | By Craig Kopp

Published January 14, 2015 at 12:48 PM EST

Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio hasn't said if he's running for president in 2016.

But if you want a peek at what some planks of his presidential platform might look like, just crack open Rubio's new book, "American Dream: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone."

PolitiFact Florida did just that and has fact-checked a couple of claims in Rubio's book.

First, Rubio attacks government regulation, claiming that over-regulation hurts states like Florida.

Rubio writes, "A private company is interested in building a natural gas pipeline into Florida. But before it can even begin construction it is being forced to spend months under the review of six federal agencies."

"We rated this one true," said Josh Gillinof PolitiFact Florida. "Now, we're not looking at whether this is over-regulation or anything like that. And we did not hear back from Rubio's office. But we did ascertain that this was a big project called the Sabal Trail Transmission Expansion. That's a pipeline that's designated to finish up in 2017. It would bring natural gas to central Florida from Alabama."

And how many regulatory agencies have to sign off on that project?

"There are five different federal agencies listed," explained Gillin. "But the U.S. Transportation Department would have to look at it, so that would be six. And then we threw on top of the OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. So if you want to get technical about it, it's seven."

Also in his book, Rubio takes some shots at bureaucracy in higher education.

Rubio writes, "One study found the number of administrative employees at colleges and universities has more than doubled over the last 25 years, outpacing the growth of students by more than two-to-one."

"We called that mostly true," Gillin said. "The number isn't quite 100 percent growth for bureaucrats. And, in fact, if you parse it down to whether or not we're talking about actual administrators or student support staff -- people who handle things like career counseling or maybe disciplinary boards -- that number drops down a little bit more. But the growth really is kind of two-to-one. But it's not all bureaucrats so we called it mostly true."