State Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, spoke to Student Senate about the Renewable Energy Center state bill at Wednesday night’s meeting.

The bill would allow funding to be used at Eastern for the Renewable Energy Center. The bill could supply $40 million of the $60 million needed for the center.

Righter said he was optimistic about the bill passing through the State Senate by Thursday, but is cautious about how the House of Representatives will vote.

“We’re asking for a green light from Springfield, and even though we are not asking for money, we still need ‘grass-root’ support from the students,” Righter said. “We need to run all the way through the tape and get this done.”

Eric Wilber, student executive vice president, has worked extensively with other members of the Student Senate to make the state representatives aware of the importance of this bill being passed for the university.

The members of Student Senate, along with help from other students, have written 800 letters to the representatives in Springfield to voice the importance of voting in favor of this bill.

Wilber said he is excited with this number, but he said he has a goal set for at least 1,000 letters to be sent out.

“I think that (Righter) coming and talking to us about how we can really get involved shows they realize this thing isn’t going to get done without us,” Wilber said.

Both Righter and Wilber encouraged students to contact their representative to voice their concern for this bill.

The bylaw change regarding the Student Senate diversity requirement was approved with a vote of 18-3-3 after being tabled for two weeks.

Student Senate member Isaac Sandidge, who was against the original bylaw change, spoke openly for this bill during Wednesday’s meeting.

“My big concern with the bylaw change was that they completely omitted the diversity requirement, now they have edited it and actually changed it back to what it was last year,” Sandidge said.

In other business, Student Senate passed four bills, in which two were emergency legislations.

The first was a bill for Panther Service Day T-shirts, which will be given to participants at the event on April 25. The bill passed 21-0-0 for $800 to pay for the shirts. The expected cost may come to $1,200, but the Department of Student Community Service has agreed to pay for the difference in the cost.

The second emergency legislation was a bill for the Student Senate Inauguration, which set the location in the 1895 Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. This bill passed with a vote of 20-0-2.

The Live Line Demo bill was also passed with a vote of 18-0-3. This was to release the funding to pay for the Live Line Demo, which took place April 7.

Kayleigh Zyskowski can be reached at 581-7942 or at kzyskowski@eiu.edu.