When Fukushima blew and radiation was an issue, the government adopted interim standards. These were standards that screened out some products but let a lot of others through. They did not seem to have much scientific basis — in part because there are not many scientific international standards for how radioactive it is okay for food to be — but their very existence provided a veneer of approval and kept serious food runs from developing.
A year later, the standards were significantly tightened. Why? Because the immediate crisis was over and it was now possible to be more discriminating. Besides, more and more people were starting to ask if this stuff was really okay. But again, when pressed for details and rationales, the government position was basically that they know what they are doing and the public should trust them. Of course, many of these government people who say they know what they are doing are the same people who said they knew what they were doing in the immediate aftermath, which does not inspire a lot of trust. But being the only act in town, the “new and improved” standards stuck.
Flash back to the early days after the Fukushima meltdown when Prime Minister Kan said plants would have to pass a two-part stress test before they would be approved for restart. Many nuclear-power advocates criticized the sudden imposition of this new regulation, but it stuck because the public backed it (actually, the public would have backed something even more rigorous, but this was accepted as a start) and it had international precedent. But that was then and now is now. And now Japan is down to just one operating reactor and the very real possibility that it will go into the summer months with zero operating reactors.
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So the government has decided the second part of the stress test is not really needed after all. And it has also decided that a power company’s intending to beef up safety should be counted the same as the company’s having already beefed up safety. If you say you are going to do it, we consider it done. This is the new “interim standard” that has been announced. Why “interim”? Well, that just means it has not been peer- or anything-reviewed. It is a “why don’t we try this and see if it works” standard.
Just as Tepco and the other power companies made up the data to file good-looking reports all these years, now the government is making up the standards to make it easier for the power companies to look like they are meeting them. Very convenient for everybody concerned — which does not, as far as the government and industry are concerned, include the people who will be displaced by and still end up having to pay for the next accident.