Who says Montana Republicans and Democrats can't get along? All five state Public Service Commission members - ranging from deeply conservative to strongly liberal - apparently had little trouble agreeing to reject an Australian investment company's proposed $2.2 billion bid to buy NorthWestern Energy.

And they made it clear that this wasn't some xenophobic reaction to the prospect of foreign ownership. It was that the numbers just didn't add up.

Commissioners were concerned that Babcock and Brown Infrastructure was planning to pay about $700 million more than NorthWestern's current value. They questioned how BBI could recoup that money other than by extracting overly high dividend payments, thus putting the utility at financial risk and prevent it from providing adequate services at reasonable rates.

All BBI's promises of good intentions, as well as a steady stream of full-page ads in Montana newspapers and a glowing editorial-page testimonial from Paul Poulzin, the state's most quoted economist, couldn't overcome that basic discrepancy in the commissioners' minds.

We don't pretend to have the competence to pass judgment on billion-dollar utility deals. And we realize that the legal issue of the PSC's authority to block the sale may end up in court. Still, there's something reassuring about the unanimous vote by commissioners, Republican and Democratic alike, to take decisive action to protect what they see as the best interests of Montana ratepayers.