Among recent innovations which may be viewed as the product of this movement to perfect administrative accountability to Congress are the requirements of executive reporting to the Legislative Branch and the “legislative veto.” Whether statutes embodying these devices provide Congress with a check on the Executive Branch in excess of that deemed essential, and in effect, accord to the Legislative Branch an actual participation in the administration of the laws is the major issue to which this chapter is devoted. ACCOUNTING TO COMMITTEES In the course of signing H. R. 6042, a defense appropriations bill, on July 15, 1955, President Eisenhower rebuked Congress for including therein Section 638 requiring the Secretary of Defense to secure prior consent of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees before separating from his Department functions which he thinks could better be performed by private industry. The President alleged that the Congress has no right to confer upon its committees the power to veto Executive action or to prevent Executive action from becoming effective. Invoking the constitutional principle of the separation of powers, he declared his intention to ignore this provision.[560] While the bill which President Eisenhower reluctantly signed represented an effort to delegate a share in the executive function to committees of the Congress, such legislative action is not wholly without precedent. A survey of legislation in the fields of foreign affairs and economic or military emergency since 1933 indicates not infrequent attempts by Congress to secure for its committees some measure of continuing influence over the exercise of powers delegated to the executive. This may take the form of requiring periodic or special reports to policy committees instead of the full houses, it may take the form of compulsory consultation with committees--and whatever this entails by way of consequent committee influence on administrative action, or the committee may be secured a suspensive, enabling, or veto power over administrative action. It would be rash to construct, on the basis of our study, a judgment of the potential good or evil attending the increasing effort of Congress to share the detailed burdens of administration. The trend, it seems clear, exists, however.