By Joseph Levy

The American Suntanning Association is staying ahead of attempts to over-regulate professional indoor tanning facilities at the state and federal level in 2025. And we’re working with partners worldwide to do so.

In Iowa this year, ASA successfully convinced legislators to amend a would-be-effective under-18 ban bill to a parental-consent signed-once-in-person bill – helping the market underscore existing best practices. The bill passed the Iowa House of Representatives, but did not come up for a vote in the Senate before a mid-April deadline for House-originated bills. If the bill does get heard again next year – and we expect it might — it’ll starting as a bill asking for parental consent signed once in the store – standard practice for years in professional salons.

ASA’s Joseph Levy has been to Des Moines several times this year working with state legislators. “We are a solution-oriented player in the sun care field. Our story is scientifically solid,” Levy said. “This professionalism and problem-solving approach are why our efforts have been successful in the state regulatory arena in the past 10 years.”

ASA has won 60 consecutive legislative efforts in state capitals, and now has been victorious more than 160 times since beginning this work in 2013. Levy has traveled to 43 different state capitals. This year:

• ASA once again in 2025 has worked to prevent legislative proposals to enact under-21 sunbed restrictions from moving forward anywhere in America.
• ASA once again in 2025 has successfully prevented under-18 sunbed restriction legislation from advancing in several legislatures – gaining bi-partisan support in many states for the scientifically supported position that sunburn prevention is not advanced by restricting access to professional sunbeds.
• ASA in 2025 once again worked to defeat a state service tax bill in Louisiana that would have layered another tax on tanning facilities and other service businesses there.
• ASA this year once again halted legislative talk to restrict spray tanning services to under-18 clients.
• ASA in 2024 convinced a state regulatory agency to abandon an effort to limit sunbed clients to 1-2 sessions per week.
• In many cases, ASA convinced would-be bill sponsors not to even introduce bills after seeing the science that does not support that approach. Some of our victories involved tax bills and other issues.

“The best way to keep legislation from getting any traction is to re-dedicate your tanning business to professional practices, sunburn prevention and to be worthy of the path that is being blazed for the tanning market of tomorrow,” Levy said. “And get involved with ASA. We need your support.”

There are other accomplishments. And likely you haven’t heard about many of them. Aside from the legislative victories you have heard about, there are so many examples of potential issues ASA has prevented from ever even coming up.

When legislative proposals do get momentum, we’ve been a constructive force in preventing government over-reach when proposals wouldn’t actually improve public health.

“My job has taken me to 43 state capitals, Washington D.C., most of Canada’s provinces in cooperation with the JCTA, and destinations worldwide in cooperation and support of the European Sunlight Association and the UK Sunbed Association,” Levy said.

“In Ohio and Iowa this year, meetings with state legislators laid out bipartisan support for our position when bills were introduced to outlaw sunbed visits for clients under age 18. I visited Columbus five times this year to meet with more than two-dozen committee members personally. We prefer to do this before bills come before a committee for consideration.”

And if a bill actually does move forward in a legislative committee, we’ve matured to the point of providing a positive, constructive case supporting our position. Such as we did in two different committees in the Ohio legislature this year.

The exact way we present our message changes based on circumstances, but the core science always shines through.

Click here to read the entire article in the latest issue of Smart Tan Magazine online.