WASHINGTON  – The Obama administration is refusing to release government records on its “cash-for-clunkers” rebate program that would substantiate – or undercut – White House claims of the program’s success, even as the president presses the Senate for a quick vote for $2 billion to boost car sales.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Sunday the government would release electronic records about the program, and President Barack Obama has pledged greater transparency for his administration. But the Transportation Department, which has collected details about 157,000 rebate requests, won’t release sales data that dealers provided showing how much U.S. car manufacturers are benefiting from the $1 billion initially pumped into the program.

The Associated Press has sought release of the data since last week. But the public and Senate Republicans demanding more information will have to wait for details because federal officials running the program don’t have time to turn over data delivered by car dealers, said Rae Tyson, spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

LaHood said in an interview Sunday he would make the electronic records available. “I can’t think of any reason why we wouldn’t do it,” he said.

DOT officials already have received electronic details from car dealers of each trade-in transaction. The agency regularly analyzes the data internally, producing helpful talking points for LaHood, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs and other officials to use when urging more funding.

LaHood, the program’s chief salesman, has pitched the rebates as good for America, good for car buyers, good for the environment, good for the economy. But it’s difficult to determine whether the administration is overselling the claim without seeing what’s being sold, what’s being traded in and where the cars are being sold.

LaHood, for example, promotes the fact that the Ford Focus so far is at the top of the list of new cars purchased under the program. But the limited information released so far shows most buyers are not picking Ford, Chrysler or General Motors vehicles, and six of the top 10 vehicles purchased are Honda, Toyota and Hyundai.

LaHood has called the popular rebates to car buyers “the lifeline that will bring back the automobile industry in America.” He and other advocates are citing program data to promote passage of another $2 billion for the incentives — claiming dealers sold cars that are 61 percent more fuel efficient than trade-ins and Ford’s Focus is the top seller.

LaHood also said this week that even if buyers aren’t choosing cars made by U.S. automobile manufacturers, many of the Honda, Toyota and Hyundai cars sold were made in those companies’ American plants.

But there’s no way to verify his claims without access to DOT’s data.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has argued against quick approval of $2 billion for the program because little is known about the first round of $3,500 and $4,500 rebates.

“We don’t have the results of the first $1 billion,” McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said. “You don’t have them. We don’t have them. DOT doesn’t have all of it. We’d hate to make a mistake on something like that.”

The News & Observer looks at the economic stimulus package Congress is considering this week and whether it will help North Carolina.

NEW YORK – If her bid for vice president fails, Gov. Sarah Palin could almost surely use her sudden fame to obtain a lucrative book deal or high fees on the lecture circuit, or even get her own TV talk show. But Alaska law might not allow it.

A provision of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act restricts outside employment. It says: “The head of a principal executive department of the state may not accept employment for compensation outside the agency that the executive head serves.”

Senior Assistant Attorney General David Jones said the section likely applies to the governor but it’s not clear what constitutes “employment.”

“Clearly, the intent of the statute is to make it clear these are full-time jobs. If you are a commissioner, for example, you can’t be working in the private sector. But does that mean you can’t go out and give a speech now and then for an honorarium? I don’t know. I don’t know that we have interpreted it for that purpose in the past,” Jones said.

Palin, 44, was little known beyond Alaska before John McCain chose her in August to be his running mate on the Republican ticket. Although she has been widely criticized as too inexperienced to handle the presidency, Palin consistently draws large crowds and is considered an attractive and dynamic presence, receiving high praise for her appearance Oct. 19 on “Saturday Night Live.”

“It’s not unimaginable that Ms. Palin, who once worked as a television sports reporter, could someday follow (Ronald) Reagan’s path in reverse and cash in her political renown to become a show-business celebrity,” New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley wrote.

“One thing everybody can agree on is that Gov. Sarah Palin is qualified – to someday host her own television show.”

Palin was elected governor in 2006. Her term is scheduled to run through 2010.

Unlike McCain, or the Democratic candidates – Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Joseph Biden – Palin has never written a book. But interest in her has been so high that her nomination made an instant best seller out of an obscure biography, Kaylene Johnson’s “Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down,” published last spring by Epicenter Press, Inc., based in Kenmore, Wash.

Publishers agree that a Palin memoir would bring her a seven-figure advance, should she be permitted to accept it.

“If she is allowed to do whatever she wants, all kinds of things are possible,” says Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs, which released the best seller “What Happened,” by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

“What you have with her is a situation in which she’s a real celebrity, and she’s new enough for people to want to read about her.”