KERN COUNTY, Calif. (KERO) — Kern County Board of Supervisor Mike Maggard says Kern County has been battling with Gov. Gavin Newsom and state democrats for years over declining oil production that has caused local property tax revenue to "drop like a stone."

Now add the war in Ukraine and the ban on Russian oil and Californian's are paying the highest price for gas in the nation.

The supervisors passed a resolution on Tuesday formally requesting the state and Gov. Newsom stop their current limitations on local oil and gas permitting and extraction.

Although Maggard says technically it was never the governor's decision to make..

The Board of Supervisors joined state lawmakers and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives calling on the governor to reverse course on oil permitting following the loss of 15 million barrels of oil from Russia.

The state imports more than 200 million barrels a year consuming three times as much oil as it produces.