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.
Port Orford is a city in Curry County, Oregon, United States. It is on the southern Oregon Coast, at the northern end of what coastal Oregonians call the Banana Belt, because the weather from Port Orford south is noticeably warmer than the weather north of Cape Blanco. The population was 1,153 at the 2000 census. The town takes its name from George Vancouver's original name for Cape Blanco, which he named for George, Earl of Orford, "a much respected friend."