Well, that didn't take long: The New Mexico Supreme Court yesterday came down on the side of conservationists — and against our notably nonenvironmentalist governor for trying to rule by fiat.

Susana Martínez was no sooner sworn in as chief executive than she imposed a 90-day hold on publication of all proposed or pending rules. Targeted were recent regulations from the Environmental Improvement Board capping greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-fired generators and a few of the other usual suspects, and another rule on discharges from dairies into our groundwater. Without publication in the state register, rules don't take effect.

In the same New Year's Day order, the governor called for a "business-friendly" task force — of her administration's choosing — to decide whether to keep, rescind or revise rules that might have an effect on New Mexico business.

That, by darn, was showing folks who's boss — or so she thought.

Not so fast, said the New Mexico Environmental Law Center. On behalf of clients New Energy Economy and Amigos Bravos, its lawyers sued just 10 days later to compel the publishing of rules they saw as not just proposed or pending, but already adopted. And what was this nonsense about crossing out the filing dates that would have shown the date and time the rules were submitted? The Sierra Club also weighed in with its own petition.

Yesterday, in front of a packed court and crowded hallway, the court ordered the state records administrator to publish the rules, with Chief Justice Charles Daniels noting that there's a "nondiscretionary administrative duty to follow the law."

Shades of the last Republican governor, Gary Johnson, who had his own dreamy notions of our laws and constitution — only to awaken to the realities of Marbury v. Madison, that two-centuries-old Supreme Court decision recognizing the separation and limitation of powers.

In Martínez's case, it was the power of the last administration versus that of the one she leads. No doubt she'll be able to authorize her share of environmental mischief, and do so legally. She has been loud and clear about our state being "open for business," and damn the concerned-citizen torpedoes. But the attempted sabotage of the environment-board rules, as Bruce Frederick of the environmental law center notes, was carried out in the manner of a backroom deal. And that, Martínez's fellow New Mexicans are supposed to think, went out with the last administration.

Martínez, unlike Johnson, is a lawyer; surely she knew that it would take legal legerdemain to undo the work of predecessor Bill Richardson's Environmental Improvement Board as quickly as she wanted. Or was her alacrity in attacking the rules merely a show of allegiance to the industries that supported her successful candidacy?

The new governor shouldn't have to be told this, but as law-center director Douglas Meiklejohn put it, the ruling sends a message to her and her Cabinet: "They must follow the law, just like the citizens they govern."

So now she's got that straight, on with her administration ...