In a draft of his testimony obtained by Youth Today, J. Robert Flores says he awarded grants according to standard practice, that his choices were approved by his supervisors and that media reports about the grants process are misleading.

"Even a cursory review of the facts reveals these allegations for what they are - an attempt to attack administration policy and decisions that, while disagreed with by some, were made under the authority of law and within the department's discretion in a transparent and good faith manner," says the draft of the statement by Flores, administrator of the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).

Flores is slated to appear before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to answer questions about how his agency awarded competitive grants for fiscal 2007, amid allegations that he bypassed high-scoring proposals to award grants to organizations whose bids scored lower but that he favored. The allegations have been reported in several stories since September in Youth Today, and more recently by ABC's Nightline.

A late version of the draft testimony was circulated within the Justice Department, of which OJJDP is a part. It is not clear how much Flores' final testimony might differ from the draft.

The testimony defends two groups that have come under fire for receiving grants even though dozens of organizations that scored above them did not: The Best Friends Foundation and the World Golf Foundation.

The draft states that Best Friends is under attack because its program includes abstinence education and because it is run by Elayne Bennett, wife of conservative icon William Bennett, secretary of education in the Reagan administration.

As for World Golf's First Tee program for youth, Flores says its work "has been pilloried because it is tied to golf, and I assume for those who are biased against the wealthy, because it has historically been a sport of the well-to-do." He also notes that World Golf has been funded by Congress for several years.

In describing the process for awarding the National Juvenile Justice Programs grants, Flores' draft testimony  states:

* He used staff  rather than outside peer reviewers to review the bids because of a time crunch, and that there is nothing that prohibits him from using staff reviews.

* The reviewers scored the bids according to the quality of the grant proposals, based on such factors as how well written they were and the ability of the organization to carry out the work - "not whether the work should be done or whether a grant should be awarded," which he says is a policy decision for him to make.

* He did not create special categories within the grant so that he could justify awarding money to organizations that fit into those narrow categories. Youth Today has reported that a  memo by Flores justifies some of the grants by saying they ranked first in certain priority areas, when they were the only bids listed in those priority areas.

* He explained the reasons for his grant selections to Regina Schofield, then the assistant attorney general who oversaw his agency, both in person and in writing, and she voiced no objections or confusion. Schofield has said Flores misled her by stating that certain groups ranked first, second or third in specific priority areas, although she recently learned that overall those groups ranked as low as 51st among the 104 bidders.

* Some organizations that scored high were not funded through the National Juvenile Justice Program because they received funding under other programs, proposed to do work that was already being done by other groups or were not proposing national programs.

"While some may disagree with my decisions, they were made in accordance with the law, within department rules, and in good faith to address the needs of our children who find themselves in the juvenile justice system or at risk of contact with it," the testimony states.