COLUMBIA, S.C. - The state's newest U.S. senator and its freshman representative in the U.S. House are questioning plans for a $2.5 million office project in Irmo for a federal judge.

"We need to take another look at that," U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., said of the proposal for an unmarked building solely for 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Dennis Shedd.

Wesley Denton, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said the senator's "office is looking into the situation."

President Bush appointed Shedd to the court in Richmond, Va., three years ago. Those jurists are allowed to maintain offices back home, too.

Shedd does not want to be in a building with civilian access because of past threats, Karen Redmond, a spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, has said.

While Inglis said he understands the need for security for judges and other public officials, those concerns should not be unreasonable.

"We need to not be so convinced of our need for security," Inglis said.

A private developer will build Shedd's office building and lease it to the government for $258,713 yearly for a decade, officials said.

The project is proceeding in the midst of a two-year moratorium on courthouse construction as the judiciary trims costs after a fiscal 2004 budgetary shortfall that forced a 6 percent staff cut.

A new, $40 million federal courthouse in Columbia has no room for Shedd, and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court here wants the space he now occupies, Redmond told The Greenville News last week.

Judicial Watch, a national, nonprofit government watchdog group, is sensitive to security concerns, but there "always is a cheaper way," said Tom Fitton, the group's president. "This is another instance of the government doing it the most expensive way possible."

Judicial security concerns have grown this year after the husband and mother of a U.S. District Court judge were killed at the judge's home in Chicago in March. Also in March, a superior court judge, a court reporter and a deputy were killed in a shooting at an Atlanta courthouse.