AUGUSTA (AP) – Maine’s attorney general asked a federal court Thursday to throw out the government’s lawsuit against Maine officials over whether a phone company should release information about its handling of confidential records.

Attorney General G. Steven Rowe said the state’s request, filed on behalf of the Public Utilities Commission, asserts the federal government has no jurisdiction in the case. The state also contends that the government is wrong to invoke “state secrets” arguments.

“There are no state secrets at issue here,” Rowe said at a news briefing after the motion to dismiss was filed in U.S. District Court in Bangor.

The litigation stems from a press release issued by Verizon and information it provided to the PUC, in which the telecommunications company claims it did not provide phone records to the government for its domestic surveillance program. The company also said in a May news release that it would not discuss any relationship with the National Security Agency program.

The PUC, prompted by a complaint by 22 Mainers, ordered Verizon to provide a sworn affirmation that Verizon’s statement about the phone records is true. In response, the federal government sued, saying that the PUC’s attempt to force Verizon to answer raised national security concerns.

Rowe was joined by PUC commissioners Thursday in rejecting the government’s national security claims in the case.

“It’s not about state secrets. It’s about the integrity of the Public Utilities Commission process,” said Sharon Reishus, one of the regulatory agency’s commissioners and a defendant in the government’s suit.

PUC Chairman Kurt Adams said the commission took the complaint over the handling of phone records “very seriously,” adding that the PUC’s ability to carry out its administrative duties was at issue in the case.

A legislator who is deeply involved in utility issues, Rep. John Brautigam, dismissed the federal government’s secrecy claim as “the kind of legalistic mumbo-jumbo that gives the administration in Washington a bad name.”

“The public has a right to know that their confidential information has been safeguarded in compliance with Maine law…,” said Brautigam, D-Falmouth.

A spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department’s public affairs office, Charles Miller, said there would be no comment on the motion because the case is in litigation.

Legal disputes have surfaced in other states over reports of phone company cooperation with government surveillance efforts.

In Vermont, Verizon and AT&T customers, Gov. Jim Douglas and the state’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union are urging state utility regulators to determine whether the two phone companies violated state statutes by turning records over to the NSA.

The American Civil Liberties Union last spring filed complaints in more than 20 states over allegations that phone companies shared customer records with the NSA.

The Maine Civil Liberties Union is supporting the phone records complaint of the 22 Mainers.