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.
Lake Jackson is a city in Brazoria County, Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown Metropolitan Area. As of a 2006 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the city population was 27,614. Lake Jackson is named after an oxbow lake of the same name on the outskirts of town. The lake in turn was named after the family whose antebellum plantation house sat alongside the lake; only very minor ruins of the Lake Jackson Plantation can now be seen in a park at the site. The city is the birthplace of famous Tejano superstar, Selena, rock musician Casey McPherson, and hometown of country music singers Cole Deggs and Shade Deggs of the group Cole Deggs & The Lonesome. The city has also long been the hometown of Ron Paul, the Congressman who represents Texas' 14th Congressional District .