The government set up a panel Friday to monitor whether the nation's new nuclear administrative and regulatory bodies are following the recommendations made by the two committees set up by the state and the Diet that investigated the causes of the Fukushima catastrophe.
The panel will be chaired by Koichi Kitazawa, who led a team set up by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, better known as the "private sector" Fukushima investigation panel. The panel is to compile its first report around March after holding several hearings with government officials and regulators from the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
The NRA, a new authority that got off the ground in September, is legally independent but still in its infancy, so the panel will check how the state and NRA are following the recommendations of the Fukushima panels, said Kitazawa, who headed the Japan Science and Technology Agency.