The Latest: Southern California clean-air plan approved

DIAMOND BAR, Calif. – The Latest on a Southern California air cleanup plan (all times local):

3 p.m.

Southern California regulators have approved a 15-year blueprint for cleaning up the region’s smoggy air.

The plan passed Friday by the South Coast Air Quality Management District uses a carrot-and-stick approach to meeting federal deadlines for reducing ozone and other emissions in a region of 17 million people.

Power plants, oil refineries and other large polluters will have to accelerate reductions in their smog output to five tons a day by 2025.

A cap-and-trade plan will be phased out but calls for $1 billion in grants and other incentives for polluters to cut emissions.

Most pollution comes from so-called mobile sources, including trains, planes, ships and trucks at the sprawling Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.

The new plan gives the ports a year to come up with voluntary but enforceable ways of reducing emissions.

The plan still needs state and federal approval.

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12:08 a.m.

DIAMOND BAR, Calif. — A long-term plan for cleaning up the air in a huge swath of smoggy Southern California is due for consideration by regulators.

Directors of the South Coast Air Quality Management District are expected to vote on the plan Friday.

The district includes areas with some of the nation’s worst air quality, spanning urban portions of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties and all of Orange County.

The plan will seek to reduce air pollution over the next 15 years in Southern California, which is struggling to meet federal and state clean air standards.

Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club have complained that the plan needs to be strengthened to hold polluters accountable.