But last month, a leaked memo from a USFWS regional director reversed that recommendation, calling the conclusions based on available models "speculative".
North Carolina Sen. Richard M. Burr, who will inherit the chairmanship from Feinstein next month, was more blunt, calling the conclusions of the report "a fiction".
Another senior European official called the conclusions of the assessment "unfathomable".
Matrixx Initiatives of Scottsdale, Ariz., which markets them, has denied the zinc gels cause anosmia and called the conclusions "scientifically unfounded and misleading".
The report drew immediate criticism from Gov. M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut, who called the conclusions ludicrous and said the state would challenge in court any approval of the terminal.
The BUAV called the conclusions a "devastating indictment", adding: "If such criticisms can be levelled at one of the world's leading universities, then it is inevitable that similar issues arise in research establishments all over the country".
Although the model makes assumptions about the environmental fate of nitrogen that risk oversimplifying matters, says oceanographer Don Boesch of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Cambridge, Maryland, he calls the conclusions "robust".
In this case, critics called the conclusions half-baked, politically motivated and unrepresentative of recent dynamic growth.
One reviewer, calling the finale a "shattering conclusion," wrote, "For casual fans of American democracy who weren't paying much attention to it lately, what they saw in Wednesday's episode must have come as a shock: a cast of characters who were thoroughly unlikable, unappealing, and, in the end, totally unredeemed".
Taken seriously, Benatar's logic leads to what might be called the Conclusive Conclusion.
Facebook called the conclusion "crazy" in a blogpost.
