Yesterday’s extraordinary one-year stay of enforcement on testing/certification by the CPSC was, if nothing else, a tribute to the energy of an extraordinary grass-roots movement that emerged over the past two months and made its voice heard around the country and above all in Congress. It will rightfully be cause for celebration by thousands of businesses whose inventories of books, toys, garments and other childrens’ goods have now suddenly not been rendered valueless and which can continue making selling their wares after Feb. 10, not indeed without legal worries, but at least without being in blatant defiance of the responsible federal agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

After the hugs and confetti-throwing have subsided, there will be time to examine the many ways this relief falls short of solving the CPSIA problem, while leaving product makers and retailers exposed in serious legal ways over the next twelve months as well as afterward.

In the mean time, let us note that while some sectors of the media flopped utterly in covering CPSIA in recent weeks, others distinguished themselves, with much good coverage appearing in local newspapers and also local television (the latter often belittled as a source of original reporting). Above all, this was a triumph of social media: blogs both big and small (including the 350+ who participated in CPSIA Blogging Day on Wednesday), forums (at places like Fashion Incubator and Etsy), and Twitter (which proved its worth as a means of putting concerned people in touch with each other, spreading word about useful articles, documents and resources, and serving as an early alert system on news developments).

(Public domain illustration: Grandma’s Graphics).

Filed under: CPSIA

[Headline updated to reflect full commission approval.]

In a major development this afternoon, the staff of the Consumer Product Safety Commission has proposed (PDF), and the commission itself has agreed by a 2-0 vote to, a one-year stay of enforcement of CPSIA’s testing and certification requirements (but not its introduction of new lead and phthalate standards; products will still need to conform to those standards).

This is, in general, very good news, but two problems need to be pointed out. One is that the action may be vulnerable to legal challenge as violating the CPSC’s legal obligations to regulate, and in particular to enforce CPSIA’s terms faithfully. As if to confirm that danger, prominent “consumer” groups — that is, the same groups that pushed CPSIA through to enactment and have vocally defended the law ever since — issued a letter this afternoon digging into their position that there’s nothing wrong with the law and that Congress should not revisit it. (Consumers Union, Public Citizen — the latter, it will be recalled, being the group whose David Arkush wrote last month “I haven’t heard a single legitimate concern yet” about the law.)

All these pro-CPSIA groups have lawyers; some are governed of, by, and for lawyers. If and when they sue the CPSC, a court could agree with them and disallow the one-year enforcement stay of certification requirements.

Beyond that, the CPSC is not the law’s only enforcer. Today’s letter from the commission states the following:

The Commission trusts that State Attorneys General will respect the Commission’s judgment that it is necessary to stay certain testing and certification requirements and will focus their own enforcement efforts on other provisions of the law, e.g. the sale of recalled products.

In other words, the commission has at most the power to stay its own enforcement, and cannot stay the 50 state attorneys general from going after makers of children’s goods, small or large, who fail to obtain testing certifications between now and next February. But it expresses a wan hope that they will be reasonable and not do so. You know how reasonable those state attorneys general always are.

In another development today, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has announced that he will introduce a bill that would broadly reform CPSIA’s terms.

Filed under: CPSIA