Hitting the Ground Running

When Shawn Swearingen joined the International Sleep Products Association’s government affairs team in April, he became part of an expanding advocacy network designed to ensure that ISPA members would not be surprised by government legislation or regulations.

The previous GA team had been focused on similar goals, says Swearingen, ISPA’s director of policy and government affairs. But he and others have been tasked with making advocacy more proactive, a goal established by ISPA President Alison Keane after starting her position just over two years ago.

The 2026 legislative sessions were winding down for most states in the late spring, but Swearingen, Keane, and others have continually monitored government machinations on the state and federal levels while further building the GA team.

“We have hit the ground running and are building a network,” Swearingen says. “And Alison now has a much bigger GA bench.”

Keane and Swearingen say the ISPA GA team now plays offense instead of defense, ensuring it is not late to policy talks. 

“If we think a state is going to put out bad legislation, we can come up with our own model legislation and try and get in front of it,” Swearingen says. 

The GA team

In addition to Keane and Swearingen, the team includes Kate Caddy, director of sustainability, and Marty Salamone, manager of government affairs and sustainability. 

ISPA has had strong GA efforts in the four states represented by the Mattress Recycling Council—California, Connecticut, Oregon, and Rhode Island—and in Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia. It has now hired Capitoline Consulting, a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C., to oversee GA efforts on the federal level, while expanding GA state operations in New Jersey, Minnesota, Vermont, Illinois, Michigan, Hawaii, and Washington state. 

The level of the expansion correlates directly with the threat or opportunity in the state, Keane adds. “We have a proactive advocacy strategy to introduce us and the industry to policymakers both at the federal and state levels,” she says. “We need to make friends and connections before legislation or regulations cross their desks.”

Since Keane started in August 2024, GA costs on the national level have gone from near zero to a projected $125,000 for 2026. On the state level, the $735,000 projected cost for 2026 is an increase of 51% from two years ago, says Catherine Lyons, ISPA executive vice president and chief financial officer.

As more states ponder environmental regulations such as extended producer responsibility for packaging and mattresses, it has become increasingly important to get eyes and ears in more states, Keane explains.

“You have 50 states that are going in 50 different directions,” Keane says. The list of proposals is endless and includes EPR laws regulating packaging, laws to label what is and is not recycling, and moves to ban some chemicals. “Trying to comply with five different state laws—let alone 10, 15, or more—is an absolute nightmare. And it just isn’t doable for most businesses.”

Even for large businesses that might have many resources, GA can be extremely expensive. “They have to hire a whole bunch of people to make sure their company is compliant,” Keane says, adding that this is one of the areas where ISPA’s GA oversight adds value to members. “It is important to get out ahead on all of this before a policymaker or regulator in a state decides to make a law that is going to impact our businesses.”

An example of that happened in Pennsylvania, where legislation would regulate recycled materials that could be used in toys. That legislation also led lawmakers to start looking at mattresses.

“We support consumer protection, but mattresses are different than toys. They reached out to us and started the conversation,” Keane says. “Instead of waiting for them to write the legislation, we got in front of it. We are working with them to see what it might look like to use more recycled content in mattresses because it could be a model for the rest of the country.”

Site visits as classrooms

Keane also has been traveling to various states to help spread the message about ISPA and what it does through programs such as MRC. Her trips have included site visits to ISPA member facilities in Washington state, Minnesota, and Tennessee, where regulators and elected officials were invited to join factory tours.

“We often are introducing the mattress industry and the mattress folks who work in the industry to our policymakers for the first time,” Keane says. “We are making sure that we have those relationships. If there is something that would impact the industry, they will call us or we will call them and talk it through. That’s really what we are after.”

No matter the industry, manufacturers are often wary to participate in site visits with politicians or regulators, Keane acknowledges. But it is important for policymakers to know the constituents who create well-paying jobs and contribute to a community’s and state’s economy. The site visits are a perfect way to show that impact and provide opportunities to share facts about how various policies can help or hinder an industry’s growth, she says.

“We started doing facility tours at both the federal and state levels so we could get folks into the facilities to understand the manufacturing process, understand our issues, and just elevate our presence,” Keane says. “Those relationships are more intimate than a meeting in Washington, D.C., or in a state capitol because they have been to your facility, they have met your folks, and they know those folks are their constituents.”

For example, Washington state has been developing recycling regulations that would affect the mattress industry. That prompted an initiative to show details of MRC to policymakers and share how its program could be a model for mattress recycling going forward, Keane and Swearingen point out.

“We tell state officials that they might already have good recycling infrastructure, but the MRC is an opportunity to keep mattresses out of landfills,” Swearingen says. “Our program puts foam, wood, and metal back into the circular economy.”

It is not unusual for ISPA to see recycling legislation targeted for a product, such as textiles, but the program would not work for mattresses, Swearingen says. 

“You can’t have small recycling drop-offs like you do for textiles or clothing,” he says. “Mattresses are a lot bigger, and there are more components involved in mattresses than just textiles.”

He adds, “We need to make sure that the right changes are in the legislation that will work for mattresses.”

In each state where they operate, members of the GA team will collaborate with local and state chambers of commerce and other business groups that might share similar goals or concerns. That collaboration helps ensure that important initiatives are identified early, Swearingen says.

Advocacy in other areas

The GA activities extend beyond environmental issues. Keane points to a September 2025 study commissioned by Leggett & Platt that determined many low-cost mattresses sold online fail federal flammability standards.

“One of our top issues is noncompliant products coming from overseas,” Keane says. “They put U.S. manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage because it costs a lot of money to ensure that your mattress is fire safe. If you are not doing that, you can sell a bed in a box for $200, but you probably can’t do that if you are following the standards.”

ISPA has met with federal officials involved with consumer protection policies and congressional representatives to ensure they are aware of the concern, Keane notes. “We always have had a very good relationship with the key regulatory agencies at the federal government,” she points out, emphasizing that ISPA speaks with federal legislators, too.

Other issues on the federal level include tariffs and trade, such as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. “We manufacture here in the U.S., but many of our components may come from offshore,” Keane says. “So, we had to educate the administration and our representatives at the federal level about the impacts of trade and tariffs, particularly with the USMCA, because we get a lot of our textiles from Mexico.”

ISPA also would like to see the federal government take the lead on removing ambiguity over conflicting state rules and definitions involving recycling programs. For example, states regulate chemical and advanced recycling differently, with some moving to ban it. Mattress components such as foam could go through an advanced recycling process, but not if the process is banned, Keane says. 

A similar case is how, years ago in the food industry, no one standard defined genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. “Finally, someone on the federal level stepped in and said, ‘We can’t be labeling food products differently for every state,’” Keane says. “That is similar to labeling for recyclability or definitions of recycled content that are being done state by state. It doesn’t work that way. We make products that we sell in all states.”

Looking ahead through the end of this year and into 2027, Swearingen says ISPA will be paying attention to the November elections, both state and federal. “Most states start a brand-new legislative cycle in January, and we will be monitoring all 50 states,” he says. “We will need to come up with a strategy for any new states we need to watch or if there is federal legislation we should be prepared for as well.”