It was longtime House Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill who famously said, “All politics is local.”

But it is a sign of national failure when the U.S. Congress cannot rise above local politics, even when it is clearly in the national interest to do so.

Examples abound.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the top U.S. nuclear-power regulator withheld information in order to kill the proposed nuclear waste repository in Utah.

After much study in 2002, Congress designated barren federal land at Yucca Mountain, Utah, for long-term underground storage of high-level nuclear waste produced by America’s 104 nuclear reactors.

Thousands of spent fuel rods are now stored at these plants in pools of water, including at the former Maine Yankee site in Wiscasset.

The danger of this became abundantly clear recently after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan.

In order to win Nevada and gain the support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, candidate Barack Obama promised to kill the project.

Reid’s science adviser was appointed to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Obama then appointed him chairman of the NRC, which put him in position to end further study supporting the site.

Now there is no repository. Billions have been spent, and millions of people still live in danger of nuclear waste stored near major cities such as Boston, New York and Los Angeles.

Then there’s the $3 billion jet engine that just won’t die, despite nearly unanimous agreement that it should.

Two companies developed jet engines for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, with Pratt and Whitney eventually winning the contract.

Yet, Congress keeps funding the second engine produced by General Electric.

President George W. Bush tried to kill the second engine, as did his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. Ditto for Obama and his defense secretary, Robert Gates.

Still, Americans continue to spend $28 million a month to keep General Electric busy tinkering with, storing and building spare parts for engines that will never be used.

Recently, Massachusetts Sens. Scott Brown and John Kerry voted to keep the program going in order to preserve 400 jobs at a GE plant in Lynn, Mass.

That’s to be expected, and it would show exceptional courage for them to do otherwise.

But why the rest of Congress cannot muster the votes necessary to overrule them is beyond comprehension.

Finally, we want to recognize John Huntsman, Republican candidate for president, who has decided to simply skip the pointless Iowa straw polls.

Huntsman has the uncommon good sense to oppose continued support for ethanol subsidies for the corn industry.

Multiple studies have shown that a gallon of ethanol takes more BTUs to produce than the end product yields. The studies also show it pushes up food prices for Americans and produces more pollution than it saves.

The Iowa straw polls demonstrate nothing more than the ability of campaigns to bus in supporters from across the state.

Any candidate refusing to kiss an ear of corn and promise endless financial support for the state’s farmers is bound to lose.

We don’t blame Huntsman for blowing off Iowa, and we hope he is rewarded for his courage in the New Hampshire primary.

rrhoades@sunjournal.com

The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and editorial board.