Many bureaucrats and politicians have been attracted to the idea of economic instruments by the economists' promise that they will remove decision-making from the public arena thereby depoliticising environmental debates. Environmental controversy can be politically damaging and can interfere with the bureaucratic decision-making process.

The outcomes of environmental conflicts have been traditionally determined by the political process. Many economists don't like this system, however, preferring such decisions to be made by the market. Chant et al. (1990, 20) argue that market-based instruments transform environmental conflicts from political problems to economic transactions:

A major advantage of the market as an allocational device is that it provides a non-political solution to the social conflict raised by resource scarcity. Individuals obtain title to scarce resources through voluntary exchange and such exchange represents a solution to what would otherwise be a political issue.

In contrast legislative policies are characterised by Chant and his colleagues as engendering "an adversarial relationship among regulators, environmentalists, and private industry. As a result, excessive economic resources often have been used for litigation and other forms of conflict among concerned parties"(8). Jeff Bennet (1991) has also argued that the political process of allocation of scarce environmental resources is "highly divisive, confrontationist and largely inefficient", because resources are misallocated and a great deal of time and money is spent on "the largely unproductive activities of lobbying and protesting." If, instead, he argues, the market could be used to allocate environmental resources on the basis of supply and demand, just as other choices are made (for example, between growing wool or wheat on a farm), they could be removed from the political arena.

Anderson and Leal (1991, 23) juxtapose the market with the political process as a means of allocating environmental resources and argue that the political process is inefficient, that is it doesn't reach the optimal level of pollution where costs are minimised:

If markets produce "too little" clean water because dischargers do not have to pay for its use, then political solutions are equally likely to produce "too much" clean water because those who enjoy the benefits do not pay the cost... Just as pollution externalities can generate too much dirty air, political externalities can generate too much water storage, clear-cutting, wilderness, or water quality.

Free market environmentalism emphasises the importance of market processes in determining optimal amounts of resource use.

Gary Sturgess (1991), former director-general of the New South Wales Cabinet office, is one of many who has been convinced by such arguments and has argued for market-based solutions to environmental problems as they have the potential to remove the politics from policy-making and to prevent politics from distorting decisions.

Politicians have seen the "environmental problem" as being one of potential politically damaging conflict. In making policy decisions in this area they are forced to make choices that inevitably put some sectors of the electorate off-side. Bureaucrats tend to see the "environmental problem" as more of a technical/managerial problem that can be solved more efficiently without political interference. Both politicians and bureaucrats have reason to prefer a solution that is technocratic and non-political and this is the way economists have sold economic instruments.

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