 Complete the following phrase:  Critics have long charged that NRC has intentionally misled the public by dismissing critical nuclear safety and environmental issues. One example involves the license renewal program that NRC initiated to extend the operating licenses for the nations fleet of aging commercial nuclear reactors. Environmental impact statements EIS were prepared for each reactor to extend the operational period from 40 to 60 years. One study examined the EISs and found significant flaws, included failure to consider significant issues of concern. It also found that the NRC management had significantly underestimated the risk and consequences posed by a severe reactor accident such as a full-scale nuclear meltdown. NRC management asserted, without scientific evidence, that the risk of such accidents were so Small that the impacts could be dismissed and therefore no analysis of human and environmental was even performed. Such a conclusion is scientifically indefensible given the experience of the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and 