This proposal sounds familiar, in more ways than one.

Next week, Butler County commissioners intend to vote on a measure to add $5 to the vehicle registration fees of county residents.

It’s the same $5 fee commissioners proposed, then scuttled, 14 months ago. It would be an add-on to the state’s vehicle registration fee, made available to county governments under Pennsylvania Act 89. The fee would raise almost $1 million a year for the county, to be used only for highway and bridge projects — in particular, it would be used as matching funds to attract state and federal highway dollars for the same purpose.

Commissioners reluctantly abandoned the proposal in May 2017, saying the public spoke out strongly against it.Commissioner Leslie Osche, board chairman, explained then that the public distrusts government to not keep raising the fee if it would be implemented.

Things are different now. The measure is likely to pass, and it deserves to pass this time.

This time the commissioners say they have an alliance with the Trump White House. They say they’ve met with Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, have made a presentation of the county’s needs to her department, and have been assigned a liaison with Chao’s department to explore opportunities through Trump’s $1.5 billion BUILD federal grant program.

The officials in Washington have told Osche and Geyer that the registration fee would greatly enhance their application for grant money.

There’s not much reason to doubt the advice. Say what you will about the administration, it has gained a reputation for quietly getting things done and keeping its pledges.

The dynamic of having a contact in the White House ought to quell another resistance. A year ago, the commissioners got a letter from the Butler County Republican Committee opposing the fee, stating the fee would be another hit to the taxpayers. Commissioners Osche and Kim Geyer are the Republican majority of the three-member board, so it was significant that their own party opposed it.

The county GOP committee is under new leadership now, New officers were elected in June. That means the commissioners, who were elected to four-year terms in that began in 2016, have a bit of seniority, having held office since January 2016.

Moreover, the commissioners appear to have a powerful ally in Transportation Secretary Chao, who desires to match federal dollars to the county fee revenue. In the 18 months since the Trump administration took command of the executive branch, it has demonstrated an earnestness to deliver on campaign pledges amid the massive distraction of political opposition. Commissioner Geyer put it succinctly: “You know what? That’s the Route 228 project.”

The commissioners seemed determined this time to push the registration fee into existence, and they should — only with one major stipulation: The registration money should be used entirely for highway and bridge work.

It takes a special kind of determination — courage, actually — to return to a once-defeated proposal in hopes of passing it. We should not regard lightly what the commissioners are doing, or the extent to which they believe the registration fee will benefit the county. They deserve the benefit of the doubt this time.