MARCH 11, 2017

IF THE TRUMP administration can ever get to governing without a daily sideshow, next on the agenda is regulatory reform. Interpret that to mean a field day for Republicans determined to gut everything from environmental protection to rules that might keep banks and telemarketers from ripping you off.

The coming slash-and-burn is one reason the GOP puts up with Trump, who party leaders gleefully hope will carry out their crusade against regulations, which they castigate as “job-killers” and impediments to business.

Except not all businesses agree. In the emerging field of self-driving cars, which is already revolutionizing the auto industry, some of the country’s largest manufacturers and tech companies actually want regulation.

“Most of the players in the industry would prefer some type of federal preemption [over inconsistent state laws],” Matt Wansley of Cambridge’s NuTonomy told the Globe. NuTonomy is testing its driverless vehicles in the Seaport District, supported by executive orders from Governor Charlie Baker and Mayor Marty Walsh. Wansley said his company and others would prefer a single federal standard instead of 50 sets of state laws and even more city rules, with inconsistencies such as whether or not cars should be required to have steering wheels or brake pedals if there’s no human driving them.

NuTonomy does have options; it’s also testing driverless cars in Singapore, which Wansley said has strict regulations that are at the same time encouraging to business.

The Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets, a group formed by Ford, Lyft, Uber, Volvo, and Waymo, agrees. “Fifty different state approaches — that’s where the federal government steps in,” said coalition lobbyist Chan Lieu. (The ever-libertarian Uber is an exception, saying in a separate statement, “Self-driving technology does not warrant rebalancing state and federal powers.”)

So what’s the Trump administration planning? Fortunately for the nascent industry, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has driverless cars top of mind, dedicating her recent appearance before the National Governors Association to the subject. Underscoring her urgency is an estimated 6 percent rise in US auto deaths in 2016, to 40,000; removing humans from behind the wheel has the potential to drastically reduce accidents.

Reassuring a bipartisan group of governors is one thing; delivering is another. Chao also responded enthusiastically to calls for high-speed rail, which hasn’t been a GOP priority for the past century. Alert listeners could hear her hidden asterisks. And though Chao is as seasoned a Washington insider as it gets — she was President George W. Bush’s labor secretary and a deputy transportation secretary under George H.W. Bush, and is married to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell — she’ll have to reconcile any love for driverless cars with whatever Trump has in mind when he rolls out his unfunded $3 trillion infrastructure plan.

Expect that to become another sideshow. But before it does, Chao and the saner heads in her department have an opportunity to do something truly great for America by writing needed regulations for a world-changing industry that wants them.

If not, Singapore already has.