The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act is officially in force today, and its "final" (to date) form has surprises for everyone. The Consumer Product Safety Commission granted a year's "stay of enforcement" for new lead and phthalate limits that requires companies to pinky swear adherence to the new laws but doesn't require them to test their products for the now-banned substances. The CPSC went on to respond to critics of this move, including ZRecs, by issuing additional guidance assuring companies that manufacturers and retailers would not be prosecuted unless they were notified of violations and then kept selling the product.

The CPSC's website has been up and down for the past few hours. Its latest guidance for retailers, a "Small Business Guide" released today, includes a table of product types and how much to trust their safety. Examples from the list include:

• Cheap children’s metal jewelry: Best to test, contact the manufacturer, or not sell


• Unpainted/untreated wood toys: OK to sell


• Painted wooden or metal toys: Best to test, contact the manufacturer, or not sell


• Toys with soft plastic that are made for infants: Should be OK to sell if made for sale after February 10, 2009. If older (or if the date of manufacture is unknown) check with manufacturer or do not sell


• Dyed or undyed children’s clothing made from natural, untreated cotton, silk, wool, hemp, flax, linen, and other untreated natural materials including coral, amber, feathers, fur and leather: OK to sell


• Clothes with rhinestones, metal or vinyl snaps, zippers, closures or appliqués: Best to test, contact the manufacturer, or not sell

The CPSC has been adjusting its language release by release to reassure retailers and resellers that they are not in danger of being massively fined. This latest uses the term "knowingly," although it is hard to see how that particular distinction would hold up in court.

Then late last week a New York district court threw out the CPSC's interpretation of the phthalates ban, which the CPSC had interpreted as not applying to existing inventory. In short, that means any children's products containing levels of phthalates in excess of the new limits are banned for sale as of today. This move comes to you courtesy of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Public Citizen.

We've been tracking a few companies for the ZRecs Guide which have been quite reluctant to release phthalates information to us for publication. We'll be watching as stuff drops off their websites, and adding products to the guide based on the materials used and the timing of their disappearance. No items will be labeled as "high" confidence for our ratings without independent verification of the phthalates status with the company - which, presumably, has an interest in halting sales of products that could earn them $100,000 fines. Thanks to President Obama's new directive to federal agencies regarding Freedom of Information Act requests, we're also hopeful we'll be able to crack open more of these regulatory conversations between the CPSC and companies as they go down. Interesting times.