Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) President Masataka Shimizu, center, bows in apology, with other executive, during a press conference at the TEPCO headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, Friday, April 15, 2011. Japan's government ordered TEPCO, the operator of a tsunami-damaged nuclear plant Friday to pay $12,000 to each household forced to evacuate because of leaking radiation, but some of the displaced slammed the handout as too little. AP / Shuji Kajiyama

April 22 (Asahi Shimbun) — The burden of paying trillions of yen in compensation to people from areas near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant will likely be shared by taxpayers and other electricity companies as well as the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. A draft government plan, obtained by The Asahi Shimbun April 20, proposes that TEPCO should remain under private ownership and shoulder the main responsibility for paying the compensation, but that a new public-private agency would bankroll and supervise it. Under the draft plan, TEPCO will at first use its own money to pay compensation. It will have recourse to between 120 billion yen ($1.5 billion) and 240 billion yen from an insurance-like contract with the government agreed before the disaster under the law on compensation for damage from nuclear accidents. But that money is expected to fall far short of the final compensation bill, and taxpayers’ money is likely to be used to help fund the payouts. If TEPCO’s liabilities exceed its assets, the company will ask the government for “special assistance,” the plan says. …

Taxpayers, other power firms to help pay TEPCO’s compensation bill