Students at Iowa State will find their U-Bills a little cheaper, with the decision by the Board of Regents not to reinstate the Energy & Environment Surcharge for the upcoming academic year.

Gary Steinke, executive director of the Board of Regents, said the fee, which was $100 per semester for full-time students, was put in place last fall. He said there had been a number of budget cuts in the previous years, as well as an increase in energy costs.

This led the Board of Regents to turn to instituting a surcharge for all of the regents universities, Steinke said.

Ryan Myers, Government of the Student Body finance director and graduate student in accounting, said the fee was used to cover a number of things, although it was instituted because of increased energy costs.

When requesting funds this year, the Board of Regents budgeted for enough money to cover what the surcharge had been covering this year, Steinke said.

With the Legislature funding more money this year than it had before, there was no need for the surcharge, he said.

Brian Phillips, GSB president and senior in political science, said the elimination of the fee would be a good thing for students.

Phillips said he almost expected the surcharge not to be renewed. With the increased funding being allocated to the Board of Regents from the state this year, he said he didn’t think there would be a need for the surcharge.

“I figured we were going to be getting more funding from the Legislature this year,” he said.

Myers said since this was a surcharge, it was different from a normal student fee. A student fee is required to go through all the “channels of the university” before it is brought before the regents to be approved. However, this surcharge was initiated through the Board of Regents, which meant it did not have to go through the same process as a student fee, he said.

Phillips said after the surcharge was put in place last fall, students lobbied for the implementation of a “sunset clause” to the surcharge.

Myers also said the sunset clause for this surcharge required the Board of Regents to re-evaluate the fee. Without it, the Board of Regents would not have been required to do so, he said.