I actually called the BAR referee station here in Sacramento, i got it from the horse's mouth. In California the bureau of automotive repair (BAR) controls the smog part of the state. It's part of the dept. of consumer affairs. I don't remember where I wrote the number but it took like a half hour to get the local referee station number and then another 15 mins. to get a "Technician" on the phone. I think I had to call around 8 places before I was talking to the right person. I hate calling anything run by the state government.

What he said exactly was, you can put a motor into a car only if it was offered in the U.S. market because when you get the sticker approving your swap the next smog it gets will be under that engine. I.E. you swap a GSR motor into a civic, BAR considers the car to now be a GSR and it is smogged as such.
You cannot go backwards with a motor, say putting in a pre 96 obd1 motor into a 96-up car because then you would be defeating the smog on that car. Obd2 cars are a lot cleaner than the obd1 cars and the computers are way better at fuel/air control, misfire monitering ,etc...
You cannot do a "JDM" swap because if it never came in a US model car they have no model to base the sticker off of, see example above.. Now that being said Honda's are different because the engines look the same but have more power from the JDM market and the seem to sneak by at the referee. They don't get the whole engine number deal most of the time.
The whole CRV engine deal that previously was posted as being illegal sounds like a rumor or somebody didn't know what they were talking about. You can swap it in no problem. If I'm wrong please correct me this would be new to me, I have seen B20's in civic's with a BAR sticker in the door jam for the engine swap.

I hope this got rid of some of the confusion, i suggest calling them before any swap if unsure that way your not crying at the ref. station cause you got no sticker.