Public utilities provide electric, gas, water or telephone service to customers in a specified area. Utilities have a duty to provide safe and adequate service on reasonable terms to anyone who lives within the service area on without discriminating between customers. Because most utilities operate in near monopolistic conditions, they can be heavily regulated by local, state, and federal authorities. Generally, the local and state agencies are called Public Service Commissions (PSC) or Public Utility Commissions (PUC). Municipal Utilities and Rural Electric Cooperatives may be unregulated though.
Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley, approximately 11 miles (18 km) east of Palm Springs. The population was 41,155 at the 2000 census. Other cities in the Coachella Valley are Cathedral City, Coachella, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, Indio, La Quinta, Palm Springs, and Rancho Mirage. The city was one of the state's fastest growing in the 1980s and 1990s, beginning with 11,801 residents in 1980, doubling to 23,650 in 1990, 35,000 in 1995, and nearly double its 1990 population by 2000. A major center of growth in the Palm Springs area, Palm Desert is a popular retreat for "snowbirds" from colder climates (the Eastern and Northern US, and Canada), who swell its population by an estimated 31,000 each winter. In the past couple of years Palm Desert has seen more residents become "full-timers" (mainly from California, who have come for affordable but high-valued home prices).