If environmental regulators are not persuaded by concerns over human health, maybe the concerns of investors will get them to reconsider unnecessary changes in federal rules on the reporting of toxic chemical use and disposal.

Last fall, the Environmental Protection Agency announced proposed changes to its Toxics Release Inventory, a successful program launched by Congress in 1986 after an explosion at a chemical plant in Bhopal, India, killed 2,000 people. The inventory tells Americans what chemicals are being used in their midst. TRI data was used by officials in New Orleans to determine what chemicals had spilled into the floodwaters that swamped the city after Hurricane Katrina.

The proposed changes from the EPA would require companies to report their toxic releases every other year instead of annually. The threshold for required reporting would rise significantly from 500 pounds of a given chemical to 5,000. This would be especially troubling in Maine, because many of the companies included in the TRI release only small amounts of chemicals.

There are currently 45 Maine communities that have at least one facility reporting in the inventory. If the reporting threshold is increased to 5,000 pounds, 25 facilities would likely no longer be required to submit information on chemical use and releases. Twenty-one communities would have less data available from the inventory and 12 would likely not get any data from the inventory.

It is bad enough that the changes to the Toxics Release Inventory would hinder community and citizen knowledge of what chemicals are being used in their area. The changes would also make it difficult for the $2 trillion socially and environmentally respon-sible investment industry to make informed decisions about where to put its money.

“As investors, we don’t want to have to wait for disasters to find out whether companies are doing a good job or poor job of managing their environmental impacts. Without TRI data, if we own the companies, it will be too late to rescue our portfolios after a major pollution situation hits the headlines,” said Julie Gorte, chief social investment strategist with Calvert, an investment company.

Instead of allowing EPA to weaken this program, Congress should demand that it be improved. It can do so by requiring that more comparative data be included in the TRI. For example, is a company exceeding its permitted emissions or falling far below them? Are a facility’s toxic releases being reduced over time?

This type of information would help local communities and those who might invest in them.