Shizuoka Prefecture should hold a referendum for its citizens to decide whether the Hamaoka nuclear power plant should be restarted, assembly member Takuya Abe said.
Operations at the Chubu Electric Power Co. plant were halted after Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 plant suffered three reactor core meltdowns in March 2011. The move at Hamaoka came at the advisement of then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who feared the facility's lack of adequate protections against giant tsunami.
Some Shizuoka residents had called for a prefectural referendum on whether to restart the plant, with an eye to scrapping the facility, but the prefectural assembly quashed the proposal last year.