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.
Damascus is a census-designated place and an unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. In the early part of the 20th century, there was an incorporated municipality there for about a quarter century, but it no longer exists. The name "Damascus" comes from a reference in the Bible, presumably to Damascus, Syria, and was first used in an official document in 1816, when the United States Congress approved a postal route through the area, operated by Edward Hughes.