The Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairwoman plans to stress a need for independent oversight of the nuclear industry when she leads a U.S. delegation to Japan next week.

Allison Macfarlane will "carry the message that an independent, strong regulator" with sufficient resources is "essential" for overseeing the industry, spokesman Eliot Brenner said.

Japan overhauled its nuclear oversight after a massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The disaster -- which triggered mass evacuations, radioactive releases and hydrogen explosions -- exposed close ties among the country's regulators, politicians and utilities.

NRC Commissioner Bill Magwood; Pete Lyons, the Department of Energy's assistant secretary for nuclear energy; and members of U.S. EPA and the State Department will join Macfarlane at a meeting organized by the Japanese government to discuss the accident and meet with members of Japan's new regulatory agency.

Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority has vowed to tighten nuclear security in the country, and Economics Minister Seiji Maehara has said Japanese reactors cannot restart without the agency's approval (Greenwire, Oct. 5).

Macfarlane will also speak at a ministerial meeting in the town of Koriyama in the Fukushima Prefecture and sign an agreement to cooperate with the new regulator, Brenner said.

The chairwoman told the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) conference in Washington, D.C., yesterday that safety decisions must be "clear, technically accurate and free of undue influence."

"An independent and transparent regulatory authority is essential for ensuring the safety of any nuclear program and engendering public trust," she said.

The Japanese government and institutions have looked to NRC since the accident occurred for guidance on how to make its regulatory oversight more independent, former NRC Chairman Nils Diaz said.

"I think they are determined to get the best help they can and hopefully change the way they do things," Diaz said.

Diaz chaired an ASME internal panel that released a report this summer that pulls lessons from the Fukushima disaster.

The panel hopes to work with as many international agencies and regulators as possible to craft a stronger safety network for the global nuclear industry.

Diaz, who was instrumental in boosting safety at U.S. plants after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said the report sets a path to ensure reactor operators can cool a reactor following an accident or avoid problems altogether.

ASME's report provides an engineer's perspective on safety, whereas regulators are somewhat limited in how they approach the accident, Diaz said.

"The NRC is a regulatory agency that is in charge of adequate protection of public health and safety and it's definitely the best, but it has its limitations, it has a framework just like all regulatory agencies," Diaz said.

He acknowledged that costs associated with making safety upgrades -- when compounded with a dip in power demand and competition from cheap natural gas -- could pose financial challenges for some plants but said the majority of the U.S. fleet will fare well.

"We've seen in the last few months a couple of older, smaller plants that are no longer competitive in the market," Diaz said, but he added that the majority of U.S. reactors will not be financially jeopardized if they follow ASME's or NRC's recommendations.

"It's like all storms; it passes and eventually natural gas is going to increase in price and we may have problems with transmission," he said. "And the benefits of nuclear are going to be re-evaluated."