Riding the wave of his newly gained clout following last month’s general election, Democratic Party for the People leader Yuichiro Tamaki presented his party’s energy policy proposal Wednesday — which includes the building of more nuclear power plants — to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba ahead of the government’s triennial revision of its national energy strategy.
Tamaki’s meeting with Ishiba came amid growing momentum for cooperation between the opposition DPP and the Ishiba-led ruling coalition on economic policy and tax reform. It’s rare for the leader of an opposition party to hold one-on-one talks with the prime minister over a specific policy.
“Rather than framing it as an either/or between renewable energy and nuclear power, I believe it is extremely important to strengthen all stable power sources, particularly those we can produce domestically, from the perspective of energy security,” Tamaki told Ishiba after handing him his party’s proposal.