There will be no quick confirmation of GSA Administrator-designee Emily Murphy as the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee is putting a hold on a Senate floor vote over conflicts with the Administration’s OPM policies.  While the hold is no surprise, it is nevertheless frustrating as a host of hot-button Schedules issues await direct input from a permanent Administrator.  First up is the future of the Schedules Transactional Data Rule pilot.  The program still continues, but appears from an industry perspective to have lost some momentum.  Whether and how the pilot will be re-cast, invigorated, or changed more substantially may have to wait for Murphy’s formal approval.  Similarly, GSA’s Formatted Pricing Tool, initially hailed as a way to iron out pricing differences among the same or similar items, has lost some confidence.  While never an industry favorite, some in GSA now question the ability of the tool to perform proper and granular comparisons.   The timing of Murphy’s confirmation is also critical to how the agency will manage e-commerce provisions of the FY’18 Defense Authorization Act (see above).  The agency should want to have a permanent leader in place to make the most of the provision without throwing the rest of GSA’s acquisition programs overboard.  Contractors and others that depend on GSA for acquisition solutions will have to show some patience until unrelated holds are resolved.