We've received a report in astroquery that the progressbar doesn't take into account the log level and is always shown. (astropy/astroquery#1179)

I think this is a very reasonable request and best to be address in astropy rather than downstream. The astroquery usage is quite standard: https://github.com/astropy/astroquery/blob/master/astroquery/query.py#L277

cc @texadactyl