When former Gov. Marc Racicot told the IR's Editorial Board recently that the utility deregulation he supported in 1997 was wise and that he'd support it again -- a remarkably effective demonstration of ideological purity -- it was a reminder that although the issue is nearly a decade old, it has yet to go away.

Today's paper contains another reminder, a painful one. It turns out that Helenans and others served by NorthWestern Energy are paying more for their electricity than the customers of any other utility in the region.

According to numbers compiled by the Lee State Bureau, average NorthWestern customers are paying 8.83 cents per kilowatt hour. Prices charged by 11 other utilities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and North and South Dakota range from 8.24 cents by Portland General Electric down to 4.7 cents by Avista Utilities in Eastern Washington.

Most of the other utilities' prices were in the 6- to 7-cent range. The Flathead Electric Co-op, one of those socialistic public utilities, charges 5.9 cents per kilowatt hour.

And while NorthWestern has been criticized for failing to negotiate enough long-term contracts for electricity and natural gas, thus leaving their customers open to the vicissitudes of the spot market, deregulation also can be said to have played a role.

After all, it was deregulation that helped grease the skids of Montana Power Company's dream of transforming itself into Touch America, the fiber-optic network of the future. And financing the dream required selling off all of MPC's power generation facilities. Bad idea, not only for Montana Power, but for customers of its partial successor, NorthWestern Energy.

Unlike all other utilities in the region, NorthWestern Energy has no other source of cheaper electricity. It is totally dependent on the open market, while the other companies either have some generating capacity or have access to cheaper Bonneville power.

Of course, this isn't particularly troublesome for NorthWestern, which can pass on higher energy costs to its customers.

But for us, the customers, it's troublesome.