It must have seemed like a terrific stroke of luck: Dick Cheney, the man who for the past five years had been the chief executive of Halliburton, became the vice president in 2000. The oil services and engineering company was given a direct line to the White House. But Halliburton's relationship with the Bush administration is beginning to prove more problematic than it is worth.
The owner of a Hayward building complex has been charged in federal court with releasing asbestos into the air during a renovation.
Clifford Cheng was charged Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Oakland with negligent release of a hazardous air pollutant, a violation of the federal Clean Air Act.
In the fall of 2000, Cheng hired a contractor to renovate a group of buildings on Main Street and Maple Court.
During a visit to the site, an inspector with the Bay Area Air Quality Management Division found four Dumpsters and piles of construction debris that contained asbestos, authorities said.
Workers at the site didn't have adequate protective clothing, and "there were clouds of dust throughout the inside and immediately outside" the site, a court document said.
Cheng "knew that this material (at the complex) contained asbestos," the document said.
