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| September 13, 2011 |
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| Nuclear Power Safety Agency |
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The government has decided after the Fukushima accident to set up an independent agency to regulate nuclear energy policy. The new body is to be separated from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Everyone expects that it will have own jurisdiction, at least up to the level of independency of the Fair Trade Commission. It seems, however, reliability of the new body, Nuclear Power Safety Agency (a tentative name) is uncertain.
NUCLEAR SAFETY AGENCY - A FIG LEAF
The government has made a conclusion to establish Nuclear Power Safety Agency in coming April as an organization affiliated to the Ministry of Environment.
The plan is to separate the existing Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency (NISA) from the METI, a promoter of the nuclear industry, and to integrate the agency into a new institution to cover functions of the Nuclear Safety Commission of the Cabinet Office and environmental monitoring roles of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
In the nation's nuclear power policy a role of brake has been for long time just an ornament of accelerator. After the Fukushima crisis a myth of safety has collapsed. But it is uncertain whether the organizational reform may work properly to assure safety for people.
Government Maintains Policy to Use Nuclear Power
The first question; judging from the current position of the Ministry of Environment and the comparatively weaker status than the METI, does the former have capacity to restrain the latter which promotes the nuclear power generation?
The second question: The Ministry of Environment has advocated utility of nuclear energy from the stance to halt global warming. Is the ministry intended to change the erroneous policy?
The third question: It is the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy affiliated to the METI that has assessed the environmental conditions in terms of radioactive effect in selecting a site of nuclear power plant. It was not either NISA or Ministry of Environment.
The fourth question: A personnel aspect. Will the same people of NISA and MITI be shifted to the new agency? As far as experts are concerned, if recruited scientists and academicians are promoters of nuclear power, there will be no change. A critical point is how to select personnel.
Until today it has been routine for employees of the electric companies and relevant enterprises as well as manufacturers like Hitachi, Toshiba and Mitsubishi be transferred to the NISA. These people used to check equipment procured by the agency from the corporations, respectively, to which they had belonged.
Even though the NISA is incorporated to the new agency under the Ministry of Environment, a checking system is not credible enough. No change will be seen. In the past numerous data were manipulated and fake information was released. These practices will not easily vanish through the administrative reorganization.
Money Controls over People
The Fukushima accident has revealed enormous illicit human connections and administrative pressure to control people. Money played the crucial role. Monopolies, elite bureaucrats and conservative politicians of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan have had close links with Governors of host prefectures, and the machinery of which was reinforced by the participation of government-patronized scholars.
In addition, a problem lies in a fact that those who responsible for having built a number of power plants on the archipelago are not prosecuted. They are employers of Big Business, high-ranking bureaucrats and ministers as well as politicians who have been alternately involved for the decades. They are responsible for the severe accident in Fukushima. They will also have to owe responsibility, if a crisis happens at other plants on the islands as they cling to a decision to keep operating.
Everyone today easily understands the state's structure and hierarchy, or in other words, the state's institutions constitute an instrument of the colossal capitals to facilitate class control over workers.
Even if the safety body is set up as a state's organization, we cannot expect many benefits. The new agency will be less evil and established too late. It will play a role of a fig leaf to conceal inconvenient facts.
We have only one way to go, if we have the new agency work in the less harmful way - to enhance popular movements against nuclear energy generation and oblige the government to withdraw from the industry. To isolate monopolies - it is the sole way to attain the goal.
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