Feeling the heat from members who suspect that indoor tanning is behind an increase in skin cancer rates, the trade group that represents the $5 billion-a-year indoor tanning industry has added members to its lobbying team to fight a new measure.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) added language to the agriculture-spending bill during committee markup that directs the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “conduct consumer testing on the wording and location of the current warning label on indoor-tanning equipment.”

The testing “should take into account,” the amendment adds, that sunbeds and sunlamps are a known human carcinogen, something that the industry disputes.

The amendment was modeled after the Tanning Accountability and Notification Act, introduced earlier by Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.) earlier this year.

The lawmakers pointed to a rising incidence of melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, as evidence that tanners aren’t aware of the dangers of sun beds.

“Many people mistakenly believe that indoor tanning is a safer alternative than tanning outside in the sun,” Maloney said in a statement. The bill sought to have a clear warning of the dangers of tanning on salon tanning beds.

After the language found its way into the agriculture spending bill, the Indoor Tanning Association (ITA), which represents tanning bed manufacturers, distributors and salon owners, hired lobbyist W. Douglas Campbell.

Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld has lobbied for ITA since 2001, according to Senate lobbying registrations.

Since first gaining a foothold in the United States in the late 1970s, the indoor-tanning industry has spread to 25,000 tanning businesses in the United States. The association estimates that 30 million people each year visit a tanning bed and claims to generate about $5 billion in economic activity.

The association did not return a phone call seeking comment, but its website disputes the notion that there is a link between indoor tanning and melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer.

In fact, the website says, regular, moderate exposure to Vitamin D-producing UV rays has a number of health benefits: osteoporosis, hypertension, diabetes and depression.

Federal regulations govern the manufacture of tanning beds, but states regulate the tanning salons themselves.

Critics of the industry, such as the American Academy of Dermatology, note that only 26 states currently have rules governing salon operation, and that those rules vary in their effectiveness.

The academy has urged Congress to pass a bill banning minors’ use of tanning beds.

Like most other spending measures, the agriculture appropriations bill is not likely to pass before lawmakers recess for the midterm election.