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.
Pena Blanca is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sandoval County, New Mexico, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the CDP population was 661. It is part of the Albuquerque Metropolitan Statistical Area. Pena Blanca's name is derived from the Spanish term for "white rock", peña blanca. However, without the tilde, pena blanca actually means "white sorrow" or "white pain".