Japan Press Weekly

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2013 February 13 - 19 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Diet approves personnel proposal for NRA

The House of Councilors on February 15 approved a personnel proposal for the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) with the majority vote of the Liberal Democratic, Komei, Democratic, and Japan Restoration parties. The Japanese Communist Party voted against it.

The proposal was passed through the House of Representatives the day before.

The NRA is the government’s agency tasked to ascertain the safety of nuclear power plants. Proposed by the DPJ, LDP, and Komei, it was established in June. The JCP opposed the establishment of the agency, saying that it lacks independence from government agencies promoting nuclear power generation.

The former Noda Cabinet of the DPJ used an exceptive clause and appointed members of the NRA in September without Diet approval. The Abe Cabinet took over the proposal and was seeking the Diet’s retrospective approval.

The JCP has criticized the NRA for failing to reflect on the real cause of or lessons from the Fukushima nuclear accident in an outline of safety standards for nuclear power plants it recently compiled.

The party has pointed out that a regulatory body for nuclear power generation must stick to scientific facts in order to utilize the bitter lessons learned from the accident and maintain its independence so as to not give in to political or corporate pressures.