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FRESNO — The San Joaquin Valley is headed for the dubious distinction of being the only region in the country to voluntarily place itself in the nation’s worst smog pollution category. 

The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District board voted 7-1 on Thursday to develop a resolution asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reclassify the region as an “extreme” ozone polluter. Los Angeles is the only other area in the nation with that designation. 

The move will not hasten pollution reduction, but is intended to help the valley avoid billions in penalties and fees if it fails to meet a 2005 deadline to clean its smog pollution. The air district said it cannot meet that goal, which would result in $30 million in fines to businesses and $2 billion forfeited in federal highway funds. 

“It certainly directs the eyes of the nation on an area that has to make serious improvements,” said Lisa Fasano, an EPA spokeswoman. 

Environmentalists and health advocates criticized the measure as another in a long line of delays that have left California’s sweeping agricultural plain under a blanket of pollution. 

“This foot-dragging shows what happens when regulators avoid difficult decisions for decades,” said Anne Harper, a lawyer for Earthjustice, which has filed lawsuits to force the EPA and the district to enforce clean air standards. “This shows how clearly the air district’s governing board members are in the pocket of the big ag and oil industries.” 

The valley, stretching 240 miles from Bakersfield to Stockton, is mostly rural and is home to the nation’s most productive farmland. 

Three of its metropolitan areas, including Fresno and Bakersfield, were recently ranked by the American Lung Association as the three smoggiest places in the country behind Los Angeles. Fresno County has the highest childhood asthma rate, with 16.4 percent, compared to a statewide average of 9.6 percent. 

In 1990, the valley was classified by the EPA as a “serious” smog polluter and told to clean up its air by 1999. When it failed to meet that deadline, environmentalists went to court to force the EPA to reclassify it as a “severe” polluter. 

Eight months after the EPA complied, the district has now conceded it can’t meet the deadline for that category and is now heading for the worst category. 

The vote will not automatically put the region in the “extreme” category, but authorizes the air district’s staff to prepare a plan to meet a 2010 clean air deadline and draft a resolution requesting the reclassification by September next year. 

Air district employee David Jones said the move to “extreme” will neither speed nor slow cleanup. 

Opponents said the decision to go toward the worst smog category would create a stigma for the region, discourage new business and slow the cleanup of pollution. 

Brent Newell, a lawyer for the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, said penalties for failing to meet the 2005 deadline would clear the air faster. 

“How much longer will the public suffer under the extreme path?” Newell said. “What will be the cost in human lives? All that information the air district is not telling people. They’ve been very clear in letting us know what will happen to industry.” 

Under the “extreme” designation, new industries that emit more than 10 tons of smog-contributing pollutants will have to pay $5,000 for a federal air permit and will have to pay more in penalties to pollute more than 10 tons. 

“It’s not out of the world costs,” Jones said. 

Business groups reluctantly supported the decision, saying that the change in designation would avoid harsher penalties.