Amici Curiae Brief of the International Municipal Lawyers Association and Legal Scholars in Support of Defendants-Appellees in Portland Pipe Line Corporation, et al. v. City of South Portland, et al.

This brief to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court was filed in support of the City of South Portland by the Amici Curiae, including the International Municipal Lawyers Association and legal scholars, to provide the Court with a background on the role of local governments in land use planning, and to explain why the City of South Portland’s Clear Skies Ordinance falls easily within the City’s authority and was not preempted by state legislation.After studying the potential for bulk loading of crude oil within its boundaries, the City of South Portland concluded that the infrastructure requirements and environmental impacts of the activity posed a threat to public health and welfare and were incompatible with the community’s vision of itself for the future. The City therefore decided to enact the Clear Skies Ordinance, which prohibits the storing and handling of petroleum or petroleum products for the bulk loading of crude oil onto any marine tank vessel in specified zoning districts. Litigation followed, with plaintiffs arguing that the City lacked authority to enact the Ordinance and that, even if it had such authority in the first instance, that authority had been preempted by other state law. Defendants prevailed on summary judgment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine, and during the course of an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, the Circuit certified several questions to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. This brief was filed in support of the City with regard to those certified questions.The brief begins by discussing how central the role of local governments is in making land use decisions, emphasizing the highly localized impacts of land use decisions for public health and welfare. It then describes the zoning mechanisms by which local governments exercise their land use power, and discusses why the zoning power is so important for protecting public health and environmental quality, and responding to the changing needs of communities.Next, the brief explains the legal underpinnings of the City of South Portland’s home rule authority. The Constitution of the State of Maine contains a broad grant of home rule authority that is further strengthened by a statutorily imposed rebuttable presumption of validity for exercises of that authority. Local exercises of zoning authority are consistent within this home rule grant, and the brief discusses why the Clear Skies Ordinance falls squarely within the local zoning power. Finally, the brief explains why the Ordinance has not been expressly or impliedly preempted by state law. For all of those reasons, the brief concludes that the City’s enactment of the Ordinance was valid in the first instance and should not be overturned

A Response to the IPCC Fifth Assessment

This collection of essays is the initial product of the second meeting of the Environmental Law Collaborative, a group of environmental law scholars that meet to discuss important and timely environmental issues. Here, the group provides an array of perspectives arising from the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Each scholar chose one passage from one of the IPCC’s three Summaries for Policymakers as a jumping-off point for exploring climate change issues and responding directly to the reports. The result is a variety of viewpoints on the future of how law relates to climate change, a result that is the product not only of each scholar’s individual knowledge but also of the group’s robust discussion

A Response to the IPCC Fifth Assessment

This collection of essays is the initial product of the second meeting of the Environmental Law Collaborative, a group of environmental law scholars that meet to discuss important and timely environmental issues. Here, the group provides an array of perspectives arising from the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Each scholar chose one passage from one of the IPCC’s three Summaries for Policymakers as a jumping-off point for exploring climate change issues and responding directly to the reports. The result is a variety of viewpoints on the future of how law relates to climate change, a result that is the product not only of each scholar’s individual knowledge but also of the group’s robust discussion

A standardized kinesin nomenclature

In recent years the kinesin superfamily has become so large that several different naming schemes have emerged, leading to confusion and miscommunication. Here, we set forth a standardized kinesin nomenclature based on 14 family designations. The scheme unifies all previous phylogenies and nomenclature proposals, while allowing individual sequence names to remain the same, and for expansion to occur as new sequences are discovered

A multimodal cell census and atlas of the mammalian primary motor cortex

ABSTRACT We report the generation of a multimodal cell census and atlas of the mammalian primary motor cortex (MOp or M1) as the initial product of the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN). This was achieved by coordinated large-scale analyses of single-cell transcriptomes, chromatin accessibility, DNA methylomes, spatially resolved single-cell transcriptomes, morphological and electrophysiological properties, and cellular resolution input-output mapping, integrated through cross-modal computational analysis. Together, our results advance the collective knowledge and understanding of brain cell type organization: First, our study reveals a unified molecular genetic landscape of cortical cell types that congruently integrates their transcriptome, open chromatin and DNA methylation maps. Second, cross-species analysis achieves a unified taxonomy of transcriptomic types and their hierarchical organization that are conserved from mouse to marmoset and human. Third, cross-modal analysis provides compelling evidence for the epigenomic, transcriptomic, and gene regulatory basis of neuronal phenotypes such as their physiological and anatomical properties, demonstrating the biological validity and genomic underpinning of neuron types and subtypes. Fourth, in situ single-cell transcriptomics provides a spatially-resolved cell type atlas of the motor cortex. Fifth, integrated transcriptomic, epigenomic and anatomical analyses reveal the correspondence between neural circuits and transcriptomic cell types. We further present an extensive genetic toolset for targeting and fate mapping glutamatergic projection neuron types toward linking their developmental trajectory to their circuit function. Together, our results establish a unified and mechanistic framework of neuronal cell type organization that integrates multi-layered molecular genetic and spatial information with multi-faceted phenotypic properties

A Response to the IPCC Fifth Assessment

This collection of essays is the initial product of the second meeting of the Environmental Law Collaborative, a group of environmental law scholars that meet to discuss important and timely environmental issues. Here, the group provides an array of perspectives arising from the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Each scholar chose one passage from one of the IPCC’s three Summaries for Policymakers as a jumping-off point for exploring climate change issues and responding directly to the reports. The result is a variety of viewpoints on the future of how law relates to climate change, a result that is the product not only of each scholar’s individual knowledge but also of the group’s robust discussion