NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Federal Reserve officials downplayed the risks of asset bubbles and balance-sheet losses, both of which hint the central bank’s extraordinary bond purchases may continue for some time, according to speeches and a media report released Friday.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke downplayed concerns that ultra-loose policy was spawning asset bubbles, according to a report by Bloomberg News.

The report said that Bernanke made the comments in a closed door meeting in early February with representatives of primary dealers who are members of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Group.

The minutes of the Fed’s January meeting released this week showed for the first time that some Fed officials were concerned that the very low interest rates were leading to excessive risk taking in a search for higher yield. Read more on bond-buying debate.

Earlier this month, Fed Governor Jeremy Stein gave a stark assessment of risk taking in the corporate bond market.

The Fed has its foot on the gas, trying to get the economy back on a sustainable path. It is buying $85 billion per month in Treasurys and mortgage-related assets.

Another challenge for the Fed is the fiscal morass in Washington.

Fed officials have pressed Congress to come up with a plan to get the deficit on a sustainable downward path.

On Friday, two top Federal Reserve officials tried to relieve concerns that lack of progress on fiscal policy would force the central bank into actions that they might not otherwise take.

“I find myself in disagreement” with the argument “that the current fiscal policy challenges might interfere in the near-term with the conduct of monetary policy in the United States,” said Federal Reserve Board Governor Jerome Powell.

Worries that fiscal policy woes could impact monetary policy were discussed in a paper presented Friday by a group of prominent economists, including former Fed Governor Frederic Mishkin at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business symposium on Fed policy.

The economists suggested the central bank might decide to delay exiting its easy monetary policy because it might face losses when it sells assets from its balance sheet.

Over the last four years, the Fed has paid the U.S. Treasury almost $300 billion dollars. Profits from increasing its balance sheet allowed the Fed to distribute a record $88.9 billion to the U.S. Treasury in 2012.

The Fed’s balance sheet has reached $3 trillion in recent weeks.

When interest rates rise, the Fed may suffer losses that mean it will not pay any income to the government.

If Congress is feeling budget pressure, it may be unhappy with no income from the Fed.

This could lead the Fed to delay balance sheet normalization and fail to exit its easy policy as needed to keep inflation in check.

Powell said this scenario seemed “highly unlikely.”

The Fed’s balance sheet is likely to be “normalized by late this decade, before the federal debt-to-GDP ratio even increases materially from today’s 75% level,” he said.

At the same conference, Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said the Fed’s latest round of quantitative easing is benefitting federal finances and should not be judged solely because it may add risks to the deficit in later years.

The asset purchase program “improves the broader fiscal outlook by lowering interest rates and providing more economic growth” and helps speed the U.S. toward the goal of full employment, Rosengren said