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Clara Harding of Paducah, Kentucky, offered the committee a medal that was presented to her by Secretary Richardson for her husband's service to the nation. "I would like to give this medal to you and ask you and your boss Henry Hyde to hold it for me until this legislation is passed, then you can give it back. If you don't pass it you can keep this medal and hang it on the wall to remind you that this bill was killed. You can call it the Joe Harding Memorial Legislation because it has been killed just like [the] DOE killed my husband." The Energy Department has said it does not know how many of the 600,000 people who worked at weapons plants since World War II have contracted beryllium diseases, silicosis or radiation-linked cancer.
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