Japanese Power Struggle Delays Nuclear Regulatory Reform

[kristopher]

Japan's attempt to launch new nuclear agency on April 1 fizzles

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The Japanese government has given up launching a new nuclear regulatory agency on Sunday amid resistance from opposition parties, leaving the country with no other option but to maintain the current nuclear safety framework that has lost public trust in the wake of last year's devastating nuclear accident.

''It is extremely deplorable that the launch of the agency is not in sight,'' nuclear disaster minister Goshi Hosono told a press conference Friday, referring to the fact the Diet has not even begun deliberating the related bills.

The existing Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, will continue to serve as the primary regulatory body, and the Nuclear Safety Commission of the Cabinet Office, which has overseen NISA's activities, will also remain in place.

...

The government began planning to set up a new regulatory agency under the Environment Ministry, after the Fukushima Daiichi plant disaster stirred arguments that nuclear power regulators should be separated from the industry ministry to do their job properly. The current set-up has been severely criticized for making the regulatory agency a unit of the industry minister, which has worked to promote nuclear power.

But the plan has been found unconvincing ...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120331p2g00m0dm024000c.html

[kristopher]

1. Why would they expect the new regulator to be any better than the old?

Japan nuke industry donated millions to safety regulator

Why? Because, and I quote, the agency "is on the industry’s back”...

But don't worry, the nuclear industry everywhere else in the world is a collegial scientific body; only in Japan has it descended to crass commercialism that exemplifies corporate greed. Surely you've heard that "what happened in Japan could never happen here".

Power industry donated millions to influential research agency
April 02, 2012

The electric power industry donated 250 million yen ($3 million) to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency over four years, including 55.1 million yen after the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant last year.

The agency, which sends many of its officials to the nation’s nuclear regulatory bodies, disclosed the amount of donations in the four years through fiscal 2011 following a request from The Asahi Shimbun.

Donations to nuclear-related organizations and local governments that host nuclear facilities are reflected on electricity rates. But electric power companies have not released even the total amount of donations they make.

For decades, the electric power industry has made donations to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, an independent administrative agency under the jurisdiction of the science ministry, according to a former executive at the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan....

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201204020042



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