RENEWALS.

SEC. 556. RENEWALS. (a) In General.— Section 8 of the United States Housing Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437f), as amended by the preceding provisions of this Act, is further amended by adding at the end the following new subsection: “(dd) Tenant-Based Contract Renewals.— Subject to amounts provided in appropriation Acts, starting in fiscal year 1999, the Secretary shall renew all expiring tenant-based annual contribution contracts under this section by applying an inflation factor based on local or regional factors to an allocation baseline. The allocation baseline shall be calculated by including, at a mini-mum, amounts sufficient to ensure continued assistance for the actual number of families assisted as of October 1, 1997, with appropriate upward adjustments for incremental assistance and additional families authorized subsequent to that date.”. (b) Implementation.— The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall implement the provision added by the amendment made by subsection (a) through notice, not later than December 31, 1998, and shall issue final regulations which shall be developed pursuant to the procedures for issuance of regulations under the negotiated rulemaking procedure under subchapter III of chapter 5 of title 5, United States Code, not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act.