High oil price not yet a growth risk: Fed's Lacker (by Greg Robb)

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The recent run-up in oil prices is not a risk to the recovery to date, said Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond Fed on Friday. "I think it is a manageable risk," Lacker told reporters on the sideline of a monetary policy conference sponsored by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Lacker said he had not made up his mind whether he would advocate scaling back the Fed's $600 billion bond-buying program at the next Federal Open Market Committee meeting on March 15. Lacker said he did not attribute much of the recent pickup in the economy to the bond purchases. Other Fed officials have defended the bond-buying program because the current growth outlook is relatively muted compared with past recoveries. Lacker said the economy is being held down by the weak housing sector. "I think we should expect a slower recovery and I think we may have to live with that," Lacker said.