UPDATE1: Gov't eyes setting up reconstruction agency in draft postquake law+

TOKYO, April 29 Kyodo -
(EDS: ADDING OTHER QUAKE-RELATED INFO FROM 7TH GRAF TO BOTTOM)
The government envisages taking legislative steps to set up a reconstruction agency within a year after enforcement of its planned basic law on reconstruction from the March 11 quake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan, the law's draft showed Friday.
The government incorporated the policy proposed by two opposition parties in updating an earlier draft, which had no provision of the kind, so that its bill for the law, which it plans to formalize and submit to parliament Saturday, can be speedily enacted with cooperation from the bulk of opposition lawmakers, government sources said.
The draft defines the envisioned reconstruction agency as an ''administrative organization to draw up and coordinate various measures for reconstruction of stricken areas with an eye to coordinating the measures.''
The government plans to initially set up what it calls the ''reconstruction measures headquarters'' headed by Prime Minister Naoto Kan at the Cabinet and then reorganizing the organ into the proposed reconstruction agency.
It is willing to modify the draft through consultations with the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party and the smaller opposition New Komeito party to get it onto the statute books as speedily as possible, the sources said.
But the bill's submission to the Diet could be delayed as Shizuka Kamei, chief of the People's New Party, a junior ruling coalition partner to Kan's Democratic Party of Japan, has been asking the premier to delay the bill as Kamei continues talks with opposition parties with his own proposal to set up a bipartisan ''reconstruction implementation headquarters'' joined by heavyweights of both the ruling and opposition parties.
In a related move, the DPJ drew up and signed an agreement with the LDP and New Komeito to revise policies in its election manifesto to help win support of the two opposition parties for the government's first extra budget for fiscal 2011 and related bills to finance reconstruction work.
Although Japan's annual Golden Week holidays began Friday to run through May 8, and Japanese parliament has a rule not to open on holidays, a session of the House of Representatives Budget Committee was held during the day to discuss the supplementary budget.
The last time a parliamentary session was held during Golden Week was on May 6, 1962, which was on a Sunday.
The lower house is expected to endorse the budget at a plenary session Saturday, and the House of Councillors to begin discussing it at its Budget Committee on Sunday.
The death toll from the disaster came to 14,616 in 12 prefectures as of 4 p.m., while 11,111 people are still missing in six prefectures, the National Police Agency said.
The government plans to ask local governments to finish removing rubble from around shelters and residential areas by the end of August as priority matter in a bid to prevent it from releasing bad odor or harmful substances, officials said.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos visited Sendai, the capital of hardest-hit Miyagi Prefecture, the same day and reiterated the U.S. offer to help rebuild the region during talks with Miyagi Gov. Yoshihiro Murai.
The U.S. military will continue its ''Operation Tomodachi'' relief efforts, the envoy later told reporters.
==Kyodo