Re: independent commission on Fukushima, "the energy mandarins may still have their way"

[kristopher]

METI tried to gain influence over Fukushima panel

...The Kan Cabinet decided May 24 to establish the panel to investigate the nuclear disaster and placed it under the Cabinet Secretariat. That decision limited the influence of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), which oversees nuclear policy and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

But, on June 6, the nuclear establishment pushed back. The National Policy Unit, which is part of the Cabinet Secretariat but is made up of bureaucrats from the various central government ministries, produced a document titled "Regarding a revolutionary energy and environment strategy."

The unit, which is heavily influenced by METI officials when considering matters related to energy policy, proposed placing the accident panel as well as the Japan Atomic Energy Commission under the guidance of an energy and environment committee to be established under the Council on the Realization of the New Growth Strategy.

The National Policy Unit would serve as the secretariat for the committee and Banri Kaieda, the METI minister, would be the committee's deputy chairman. Masayuki Naoshima, a former METI minister, and Yosuke Kondo, a former vice minister at METI, would sit on it and METI officials would be dispatched to work for its secretariat.

Kan discussed the proposal with...

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201106110149.html

I believe Kan is honestly trying to do the right thing...

[SpoonFed]

1. Frankly that will lead to a whitewash...

They should just pick a handful of people at random off the street to head the independent commision, not a bunch of bureaucrats and functionaries that had some role (however large or small) in the wheels coming off the cart.

METI took down the real-time SPEEDI data for Ibaraki and Fukushima during the disaster, those at the top have zero credibility as far as I'm concerned.