The Federal Reserve would likely launch another full-on round of bond buying only if the economy took a turn for the worse or if Europe's problems flared out of control, a top policymaker said on Wednesday.

"I don't think the conditions have developed that require us to bring out bigger guns quite yet," Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said in an interview with Nightly Business Report. Lockhart is a voter this year on the central bank's policy-setting panel.

Another round of quantitative easing "is certainly an option," he added. A dramatic slowing of growth, a wave of job layoffs, or falling prices that raise the specter of damaging deflationary spiral are all possible triggers for Fed action, he said.