The Diet deliberations on the third supplementary budget for fiscal 2011 to finance reconstruction from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear crisis and related bills are proceeding rather smoothly. But the ruling and opposition forces have a schism over a bill to establish a Reconstruction Agency.
Under the bill, the agency will plan the reconstruction efforts, coordinate government agencies and ministries concerned and related budgets, select and certify "reconstruction special zones" in the 222 municipalities in 11 prefectures, mainly in the Tohoku region, hit by the disasters and distribute government grants. The government hopes to establish the agency by March 11, 2012. But it will be abolished by March 31, 2021. While the prime minister will head the agency, a Cabinet minister in charge of it will be appointed. The minister will be empowered to advise other Cabinet ministers over the reconstruction efforts and to ask the prime minister to give instructions to them.
The opposition Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito complain about the fact that the agency will not have power to implement concrete reconstruction measures. They say that the agency will not able to break bureaucrats' vested interests, thus letting bureaucrats take the initiative in the reconstruction efforts.