The federal Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging companies to pollute less by allowing them to report less.

Deputy administrator Marcus Peacock announced new regulations Monday afternoon that reduce the amount of information that 8,000 companies nationwide are required to list annually on a primary federal toxins list of what industries release into the air, water and ground. The new rules allow companies to use as much as 50 times as much of some toxins before they must file a detailed report.

The EPA's Toxics Release Inventory compiles estimates of how much toxins are released into the environment. The facilities doing the releasing make the estimates.

In the past, if a company released 500 pounds or more of a toxin, it had to provide detailed information about the amount and nature of that release. Below that level, the company could use a short reporting form that contains little more information than the chemical's name.

Peacock announced Monday that the new threshold for reporting is 2,000 pounds released into the environment, so long as the company handles less than 5,000 pounds of the chemical.

Last year, the EPA proposed setting the reporting threshold at 5,000 pounds. In the New River and Roanoke valleys, that would have taken more than 50 tons of toxins off the books, though not out of the environment.

The rule announced Monday could reduce 2004's official count in the valleys by about 10 tons.

The TRI is a bulk measure that doesn't take into account the relative health threats posed by different chemicals, although it does segregate persistent bioaccumulative toxic chemicals from the rest. Persistent bioaccumulative toxic chemicals -- such as lead and mercury -- remain in the environment for a long time, accumulate in body tissue and are not easily destroyed.

Under the old rules, a company that used as little as 10 pounds of some persistent bioaccumulatives had to file detailed reports on their use and disposal. Under the rule announced Monday, if none of the persistent bioaccumulative toxic chemicals are released into the environment, the company can use up to 500 pounds without filling out the detailed form.

Peacock said that will encourage companies to drive down their emissions so they can cut down on their paperwork.

During a telephone press conference and in a press release, the EPA emphasized the new rule does not take a single chemical off the list of toxins that must be reported. Nor does it relieve any company from reporting requirements. It will, however, reduce the specificity of many reports.

Mike Flynn, director of the EPA's Office of Information Analysis and Access, said about one-third of the 24,000 companies that file TRI reports will be affected by the rule change. He said the reduced paperwork will save companies 123,000 hours of form-filling and about $6 million.

On the other hand, said Bill Hayden, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, "It will give us less information."

Hayden said he doesn't expect the new rule will be a significant concern for the DEQ, because the agency thinks it won't affect many Virginia companies.

In the latest TRI, which covers 2004, 477 Virginia facilities reported using or releasing 197 of the 650 chemicals on the reporting list. They released about 28,559 tons of them into the air and water. Another 2,806 tons were spread on soil, contained in ponds, put in landfills or otherwise put into the land. Though the substances involved are toxic, these were permitted releases allowed under environmental laws.

The inventory does not include chemicals from most nonmanufacturing facilities, plants with fewer than 10 employees, facilities that use less than the trigger amount of chemicals in a year, many nonindustrial sources or emissions from planes, trains and automobiles.

The EPA backed off its earlier plan of making the annual TRI report biennial.

"It's more stringent than what they originally proposed," the DEQ's Hayden said.

He saw that as a sign the EPA tried to strike a balance between the burden reporting places on businesses and the good that reporting does for the public.

"So far as we can tell, it will continue to protect the environment," Hayden said.

Joshua Low, a spokesman for the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club, offered a different perspective.

"It's obvious that citizen input made some difference," Low said. But Low said it's also obvious that the EPA of the Bush administration prefers to listen to corporations instead of people.

According to OMB Watch, a nonprofit organization that aims to increase government transparency and accountability, 122,386 of the 122,420 comments the EPA received opposed the rule change.