Japan Nuclear Safety Regulators Received Funding From Industry: Report

Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), a team set up by the government to draft new safety standards for nuclear reactors following the Fukushima disaster last year, has had its neutrality called into question by the public, reported the Associated Press on Sunday, after four out of the six-member team were revealed to have received research grants from utility companies and atomic industry manufacturers in the past.

Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), a team set up by the government to draft new safety standards for nuclear reactors following the Fukushima disaster last year, has had its neutrality called into question by the public, reported the Associated Press on Sunday, after four out of the six-member team were revealed to have received research grants from utility companies and atomic industry manufacturers in the past.

According to data disclosed by the NRA itself, the four members had received between 3 million yen ($37,000) and 27 million yen each over the last four years, with Nagoya University Professor Akio Yamamoto being the largest beneficiary of industry grants – receiving 27.14 million yen ($339,000) for research on reactors.

Akira Yamaguchi, a professor at Osaka University, also received 10 million yen from nuclear companies, including 3 million yen from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which makes nuclear plants.

AFP reported that the other two members of the team who received funding were: Tsukuba University professor Yutaka Abe, who received a total of 5 million yen from parties including a laboratory of Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), and Japan Atomic Energy Agency researcher Tomoyuki Sugiyama, who received a total of 3 million yen from Nuclear Fuel Industries.

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[quote]In a statement by the NRA, the nuclear watchdog said that it had asked its team members to voluntarily disclose any such funding in an effort to boost transparency. The authority added that the members “have been selected in line with rules, and there should be no problem,” dismissing concerns of bias as unwarranted.[/quote]

But the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, in an editorial over the weekend, said such funding inherently raises the “danger [that] the measures may turn spineless to reflect the utilities’ wishes.”

According to AP, even NRA chief Shunichi Tanaka has been accused of possibly being too pro-nuclear, with Tanaka being a key member of a government panel promoting nuclear energy in the past before being tapped for his current job.

Last week, the Japanese public had been similarly rocked by a report, which revealed that nearly a quarter of the funds set aside to reconstruct disaster-hit areas had been used for unrelated purposes.

According to the Japan Board of Audit, about half of the country’s reconstruction budget of 19 trillion yen ($239 billion) also remained unused; while many communities, directly affected by the disasters, were still chasing finances from the central government.

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