Key highlights: " Participants viewed the weakness in first-quarter economic growth as likely to be largely transitory, influenced by unusually severe weather, increases in energy and other commodity prices, and lower-than-expected defense spending. As a result, they saw  economic growth picking up later this year....Recent increases in consumer food and energy prices, together with the small uptick in core consumer price inflation, led the staff to raise its near-term projection for consumer price inflation. However, inflation was expected to recede over the medium term, as food and energy prices were anticipated to decelerate...Nearly all participants indicated that the first step toward normalization should be ceasing to reinvest payments of principal on agency securities and, simultaneously or soon after, ceasing to reinvest principal payments on Treasury securities.... A few members remained uncertain about the benefits of the asset purchase program but, with the program nearly completed, judged that making changes to the program at this time was not appropriate ...The participants who favored earlier sales also generally indicated a preference for relatively rapid sales, with some suggesting that agency securities in the SOMA be reduced to zero over as little as one or two years. Such an approach was viewed as allowing for a faster return to a normal policy environment, potentially reducing any upside risks to inflation stemming from outsized reserve balances, and more quickly eliminating any effects of SOMA holdings of agency securities on the allocation of credit."