AUSTIN - A person doesn't have to be very skeptical to have reservations about any piece of legislation endorsed by both the Sierra Club and the Texas Chemical Council.

Those two groups have been at each other's throats over environmental issues for so long that any report of a compromise is enough to make one sit up and take notice - and then start wondering how sound the compromise might be.

But environmentalists and the chemical industry - as well as organized labor and the League of Women Voters - all gave their blessings last week as the House, without any debate, approved a bill that could be a big step toward promoting more public awareness of the potential health dangers of chemicals produced and stored in the environment we all share.

Among other things, the measure would require employers to post a list in their employees' workplace of every hazardous substance kept in amounts of more than 55 gallons or 500 pounds. Companies would have to inform workers who may have been exposed to a hazardous chemical of the exposure and would have to teach workers about chemical hazards and protective measures.

Under the so-called "right-to-know" bill, workers could not be required to work with unlabeled hazardous chemicals. Employers also would have to send copies of their workplace chemical lists to the state health commissioner, who would keep a central file for inspection by the public. In addition, companies would have to send the same data to local fire chiefs on request.

The bill could get lost in the logjam of unfinished business in the Senate during the last three weeks of the legislative session, but the fact that it has come this far is something of an accomplishment.

"When you're outvoted, you negotiate," said Rep. Ed Watson, D-Deer Park, who watched two years ago as a more far-reaching bill that he sponsored on the same issue went nowhere.

Some people have speculated that a compromise was more readily attainable this year because of the memory of the methyl isocyanate gas leak that killed more than 2,000 people in Bhopal , India, last December.

But Watson noted, "We were negotiating this before the Bhopal incident."

In any event, the effort required a lot of groundwork. It also required the elimination of agricultural pesticides from coverage by the bill, a volatile issue that has been addressed separately by state Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower and has encountered considerable opposition from the chemical industry and some farmers.

The effort also required a compromise providing chemical firms a means of protecting trade secrets on products. Watson believes that provision wouldn't block access to necessary information for workers, but some environmentalists fear it could be abused as a loophole by some companies.

Still undecided is how much money the Legislature would give the Texas Department of Health to enforce the bill in this tight money session. It has been estimated the additional duties for the agency could cost the state as much as $400,000 a year, although one official said that estimate probably would be reduced.

Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who will sponsor the bill in the Senate, is cautiously optimistic about his chances, although he reported some rumblings of opposition from trucking and utility companies.

"It's not a whole loaf of bread, but it's certainly a giant step forward," Whitmire said of the bill.

Watson is a former refinery worker who is convinced the health problems of some of his former co-workers can be attributed to substances they worked with.

"After 38 years of seeing the effects of chemicals in the workplace, and living in the fallout of a highly industrialized area, I understand the reasons for the environmentalists' concern," he said.

"At the same time, I raised a good-sized family off of the salary I made as a plant worker. So I sure have no reason to want to make it impossible for a company to do business in this state."