Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2012 September 19 - 25 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

New nuclear regulation agency lined with nuclear promoters

A new nuclear regulation agency began its service on September 20 with nuclear-promoting former bureaucrats at executive posts, despite the public demand for the separation of nuclear “regulator” and “promoter”, casting doubt on its supposed role as a watchdog.

The nuclear regulation agency will serve a clerical function for the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA).

It will be essential for the people to strictly watch the agency along with the NRA led by Tanaka Shun’ichi, former dweller of the “nuclear power village”.

The agency’s top officials are Ikeda Katsuhiko (former superintendent general at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department), Morimoto Hideka (former senior official of the Environment Ministry), Yasui Masaya (former atomic policy chief of the Resources and Energy Agency), Kuroki Yoshihide (former official of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department), Nayuki Tetsuo (former official of the Nuclear Safety Bureau of the Science and Technology Agency), Sakurada Michio (former director of the nuclear fuel cycle industry division of the Resources and Energy Agency), and Yamamoto Tetsuya (former official of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency - NISA).

Yasui is a person who once ordered the cover-up of estimated costs for disposal of nuclear spent fuel in order “to prevent public scrutiny.”

Sakurada in 2004 promised he “will proceed with the nuclear fuel cycle program.” Also, when he was a director of NISA’s electric power safety division, he gave the green light to construction work on the first reactor at the Oma Nuclear Power Plant in Aomori.

Regarding No. 1 and 2 nuclear reactors at the Genkai plant, Yamamoto in 2011 stated that “resumption of their operations will encounter no safety problems.” At a town meeting, he also said “A big earthquake like the one which occurred in Fukushima will unlikely hit the Genkai plant and thus it is not imminent for the plant to be damaged by large tsunamis.”

Kuroki, though he apologized later for his unfounded assertion, stated that “it makes no sense in Japan to include nuclear opponents” as nuclear regulators.

Akahata described the nuclear regulation agency as a nuclear promotion agency.