We're Going to Leave it Up to Them?!

The discourse for administrative rationalism is one that approaches environmental issues the same as a countries defense strategy or economy: leave it to the experts. But exactly who a country deems to be an “expert” seems to vary from situation to situation and country to country. If one is to give in to administrative rationalism, they must first be confident that these bureaucratic organizations are indeed fit to assess our environmental situation and find a way to address it. Politics being ever present, we must be wary of which of these administrations we allow to decide the fate of our natural world.
Many of the institutions and practices outlined by Dryzek seem to, in one way or another, hold multiple interests. For example most of these say they are committed to conserving natural resources/reducing pollution while at the same time are concerned with the wallets of those companies depleting our forests, rivers, etc., and putting pollutants into the air. In reference to professional resource-management bureaucracies like the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife service Dryzek states, “None of these is a paragon of scientific management to the extractive industry, be it miners, loggers, oil companies, ranchers, or fishers. But all operate according to at least a public justification of administrative rationalism, however much that may be violated in practice,” (77).
It seems that we are content to have these organizations that simply say they are going to responsibly manage resources and protect our natural environment while they are more concerned with the interests of companies that destroy just that. As long as these companies are able to say they saved a certain percent of wildlife, while in reality giving up much more than they saved, the people of the world can continue living their lives believing that “the experts” will handle the situation.
Many of the decisions made or laws passed will eventually end up in court. In this situation we are effectively letting a judge, a person with expertise of the law, not of environmental issues to decide what our environmental policy really means. Why does this happen? Most likely because those who made the laws were not specific enough or deliberately left some wiggle room in the legislation so that their high paying constituents will be able to eventually find a loop hole.
We are also allowing our government to merely react to problems (“end of pipe’ regulation) rather than be proactive and prevent the problems from happening in the first place. Wouldn’t we be better off never having produced harmful chemical to be put into the air rather than figuring out what needs to be done once they are there?
“The discourse pretty much denies the existence of politics of any sort,” (87). How can this be? In every facet of government, from the popularity contests of middle school student government to the bribery going on in congress today, things other than the issue at hand have a say in how things are decided and laws are made. It is because of this that the people of the world cannot simply believe that the experts will figure it out. We need to be vigilant in watching these bureaucracies and their actions to make sure they don’t allow the destruction of our world. Damn the man, save the (natural) empire.