Meet Nate Laps, a former gas industry land agent who switched sides and now fights for landowners. He may well change how FERC and pipeline builders treat the people who live in the path of major energy projects.

Laps, 38, is brawling with two multibillion-dollar natural gas companies — Cheniere Energy Inc. and Spire Inc. — along with FERC itself.

Laps has bird-dogged Cheniere’s Midship pipeline through Oklahoma and Spire’s STL pipeline near St. Louis for years on behalf of his landowner clients. It’s no coincidence that both projects are in trouble with FERC for their treatment of landowners.