For the second time in about a week, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) is joining a fight to protest the Endangered Species Act; this time protesting the reclassification of the northern long-eared bat from a threatened species to endangered.

Lummis joined 10 other Republican senators in the fight to stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from reclassifying the northern long-eared bat under the Endangered Species Act from a threatened to an endangered species. In late March, Lummis joined 17 Republicans in an attempt to roll back the definition of “habitat” to that set during the Trump administration.

“This is textbook big government having a solution and searching for a problem,” Lummis said in a Thursday press release. “Creating a regulatory headache for the people of Wyoming is not going to help the northern long-eared bat, but it sure is going to cost many hardworking people a lot of time and money. We can responsibly manage wildlife without crushing economic growth and killing jobs.”

The fight, in the form of a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution, disapproves of the reclassification, saying it will place an undue burden on landowners, businesses and infrastructure projects without clear scientific evidence of the benefit to the northern long-eared bat.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) introduced the CRA resolution, saying, “I am strongly against one-size-fits-all regulation from Washington bureaucrats, and this is no different.”

He insists there is no reason to “disproportionately increase regulatory burden and hinder economic development when this rule will not affect the primary cause of decline for the northern long-eared bat.”

Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) introduced the CRA on the house side, saying, “The northern long-eared bat unfortunately suffers from white-nose syndrome through no fault of humans whatsoever. The listing of the bat due to this disease declares open season for environmental groups to target desperately needed development across the bat’s entire range.”

The bat, first listed as threatened in 2015, now faces extinction due to the rangewide impacts of white-nose syndrome, a deadly disease affecting hibernating bats across North America, according to the Service. An endangered species classification signals there is danger of a species extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.

Wyoming officials report the species is widely distributed across Canada and the Midwestern and eastern United States.

“It is generally considered an eastern species and is quite rare in the western portions of its distribution,” the state said in a Wyoming Species Account report. The state is on the extreme western edge of the species’ range.

In the Cowboy State, the species has only been documented in the northeastern corner in the vicinity of the Bear Lodge Mountains and Black Hills. Across its range, local distributions change seasonally as the species moves between summer ranges and winter hibernacula.

“While no shifts in distribution have been documented, large declines and local extinctions resulting from white nose syndrome infection have been observed across the species range where the disease currently occurs,” the state reports in a recent abstract about the species.

The bat is covered by wildlife rules in Wyoming and has been assigned a global range rank of G1G2, which indicates that across the species’ range, it is at very high or high risk of extinction. White-nose syndrome was initially discovered at Devils Tower National Monument in Crook County in April 2021.

Bat Conservation International applauded the reclassification, saying “The northern long-eared bat has suffered severe declines from the devastating disease white-nose syndrome. The disappearance of northern long-eared bats across most of their range has been staggeringly rapid as [the disease] swept across the continent. The proposed decision by the USFWS will provide the highest level of protection for a species that desperately needs it.”

The northern long-eared bat is relatively small in size, with a wingspan of around 9 inches, and a total length of about 3.7 inches, according to Bat Conservation International. Its fur coat is traditional in color, with medium-brown and tawny tones. Losses for northern long-eared bats due to the disease have been as high as 98% in some parts of its distribution.

Bats play an essential role in pest control, pollinating plants and dispersing seeds, the Service said.

“Recent studies estimate that bats eat enough pests to save more than $1 billion per year in crop damage and pesticide costs in the United States corn industry alone,” the Fish and Wildlife Service said in a recent report titled “Bats are one of the most important misunderstood animals.”

Across all agricultural production, consumption of insect pests by bats results in a savings of more than $3 billion per year. While many bats eat insects, others feed on nectar and provide critical pollination for a variety of plants like peaches, cloves, bananas and agaves.

“Bats are the sole pollinator for the agave plant, a key ingredient in tequila,” the Service reports.