A rash of food scares nationwide along with concerns over the U.S. Food and Drug Administation's oversight procedures led U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal to call once again Monday for the creation of an agency solely devoted to food safety.

Blumenthal, who previously had co-sponsored the Safe Food Act of 2015 that would have created a single food-related agency, pointed to a salmonella outbreak in alfalfa sprouts that left at least 30 sickened last week in nine states as well an incident earlier this summer when flour became tainted with E coli.

He also pointed to a report by the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that found the FDA deficient in its food-recall procedures.

“Right now, the tangled web of federal bureaucracy — spread across 15 agencies and 30 different laws — is failing families and food producers,” Blumenthal said in a statement.