Deliberations are in progress in an effort to reform Japan's nuclear regulatory body after the experience of the catastrophe at the Fukushima I nuclear power station. At present, the country's nuclear safety is regulated by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) under the umbrella of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), which also promotes the use of nuclear power. A plan to separate the regulatory body from METI and restructure it as the Nuclear Safety Agency (tentative name) was approved by the Cabinet on August 15.

The target date for the launch of the new agency is April 2012. Since regulating the safety of nuclear power requires highly specialized knowledge, securing qualified human resources is expected to be a major challenge for the new agency.

The basic plan adopted by the Cabinet declares to recruit highly qualified human resources from both the public and private sectors in order to properly fulfill the responsibilities of the new agency. Under the existing system, personnel transferred from METI to NISA are allowed to return to the ministry after gaining experience working at NISA. The assurance of being able to one day take part in formulating national economic and industrial policies had been the source of motivation for employees assigned to the regulatory division of the ministry.

The proposed plan calls for a system that prohibits executive officers and higher rank employees from returning to the ministries from which they have originally been transferred. The plan envisages the new agency mainly consisting of officials transferred from NISA in its initial stages, while recruiting new personnel thereafter including those from the private sector.

It is also planned that the Nuclear Safety Agency will eventually make recruitment decisions on its own. In order to attract highly qualified personnel to its workforce, it is important that the nuclear regulatory body be reformed to become an organization where its employees can take pride in working. An organization being looked at as a comparison is the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which is viewed as having the most favorable work conditions among all agencies of the U.S. federal government.

NRC currently holds as many as 4,000 employees. The reason why the commission is able to secure such a large workforce is that it is considered to be a promising reemployment opportunity for engineers of nuclear-powered warships working in the country's ordnance sector. While Japan does not have nuclear-powered warships, human resources from electric utilities and manufacturers with ample expertise in nuclear technologies can be employed for the new agency.

Meanwhile, the NRC gave its staff 18 months to consider the task force's broadest recommendation- a revamping of the way the agency ensures "adequate protection" of public health and safety. The nuclear industry, which has worried that a sweeping revamp could impose significant costs, had urged the NRC to consider that recommendation separately, arguing that it was too drastic a change to be addressed in only a few months.

The Japan task force is made up of veteran NRC staff and its report includes recommendations for the commission to adopt. However, some of the commissioners have said they want input from other staff members on those recommendations. The memorandum issued Friday calls for a "senior-level steering committee" reporting to Bill Borchardt, the agency's executive director for operations. Borchardt is the NRC's top career official and was not part of the task force.

The plan outlined Friday also calls for meetings where the industry, nuclear watchdogs, and other groups can offer their input.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said the plan will also require "a continued commitment by the commission to see that these recommendations are promptly addressed."