Their fortunes aren’t tied to energy prices or politically sensitive projects BloombergA 60-foot section of pipe is lowered into a trench in Oklahoma as part of the Keystone XL Pipeline System.The U.S. Senate narrowly squashed a bill to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline this week. The move isn’t the final word on the project, with Republicans vowing to quickly take up the legislation again in 2015 as they will control both houses in less than two months. But even after that inevitable second vote, there will still be much uncertainty regarding Keystone XL. Will President Obama veto the legislation after it passes? Or will he demand a legislative trade, asking Republicans to put forth something on his wish list in exchange for signing off on the pipeline? Will troublesome Tea Party members in the House mess up the whole process by failing to agree with party leaders and digging in? Politicos love this kind of situation because there’s so much potential for intrigue, particularly given the high stakes for the new GOP majority and the connections Keystone has to the race for the White House in 2016.Aside from big dividends, there is the benefit of rock-solid stability in pipeline stocks. But as an investor, you should do yourself a favor and forget all about Keystone XL. TransCanada Corp. TRP, +2.24% the company that initially proposed the projectin 2005, and tar-sands producers such as Canada’s Suncor Energy SU, -1.70% are old news. Their shares have fallen since Oct. 1, while the S&P 500 Index has gained 4%. Investors should instead look past the political kerfuffle about a pipeline and focus on the real opportunities in energy pipelines. That is, high-yield master limited partnerships, or MLPs. Big dividends, small commodity risk I have long been a believer in energy-pipeline MLPs as a steady source of income over the long haul. The reason is the mandate for big dividends; many pipeline players offer yields that top 5%. MLPs trade like stocks but enjoy tax benefits, as they avoid the “double taxation” of dividends. That is, the first hit coming when a company pays taxes on profits and the second when you as a shareholder get paid. MLPs pass profits directly on to shareholders. This asset class can add complexity at tax time. But income investors find these troubles well worth it. Aside from big dividends, there is the benefit of rock-solid stability in pipeline stocks. You see, pipelines are a unique energy business in that they have very little exposure to actual energy prices. Pipeline players are sometimes referred to as “toll takers” in the energy sector. That’s because they are middle men between exploration companies that produce oil or natural gas and the downstream refining and distribution businesses. Whether natural gas is $5 or $15 per million BTU doesn’t matter much. Either way, companies using MLPs for transportation and storage need to pay their fees for using the infrastructure as they go about their business. It’s for this reason that pipeline MLPs often have betas of 0.6, 0.5 or less, while exploration companies with direct exposure to commodity price fluctuations can be four or five times as volatile. (A beta of under 1 means an investment is less volatile than the broader market.) Pipeline investments to consider buying Looking beyond big-picture trends, there are three MLPs I like: Enterprise Products Partners EPD, +2.58% Enterprise Products Partners is the big dog in the pipeline space, with a market value of over $70 billion and about $50 billion in annual revenue, putting it on par with some integrated oil firms in terms of scale. Despite a rough year for energy stocks, Enterprise Products Partners is up 15%, exceeding the S&P 500. And on top of that, based on its last distribution of 37 cents a share, Enterprise Product Partners offers a yield of almost 3.9% at current pricing. Furthermore, that payment has increased slowly, but steadily, to the tune of 85% dividend growth in the past 10 years to 37 cents a quarter. The company continues to grow via acquisitions, as evidenced by the recent merger with Oiltanking Partners worth about $4.6 billion. Efforts like that ensure Enterprise Products Partners will remain the dominant player. Plains All American Pipeline PAA, +0.30% Like Enterprise Products Partners, Plains All American is involved in both transportation and storage of crude oil and natural gas, and it operates at a substantial scale. The company is valued at about $20 billion and generates about $45 billion in revenue annually from its midstream businesses. The reason I like Plains All American’s stock is because of its specific footprint serving some of the fastest-growing fracking markets in the nation: the Barnett, Eagle Ford, Marcellus and Utica shale fields, among others. While many energy experts expect the high volume of shale gas to work against natural-gas pricing in the next year or so, that volume of production also means a high volume of business for Plains All American. Based on its last distribution of 66 cents, Plains All American yields 4.9% in dividends. And given that payouts have more than doubled from about 31 cents in 2005, it’s reasonable to expect more of the same. Energy Transfer Partners ETP, +0.53% Energy Transfer Partners operates about 35,000 miles of natural-gas pipelines, making it very attractive to MLP investors. And after an April agreement to acquire Susser Holdings for $1.8 billion, the company is even more focused on this core midstream mission. On the surface, buying Susser would seem like a step in the wrong direction. As the operator of hundreds of convenience stores mainly in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, a retail chain is not core to Energy Transfer Partners’ mission. However, it had a large stake in Sunoco after a series of moves in 2012, and the purchase of Susser was designed to create the biggest value out of its retail gas station business and then divest itself of those operations. This is a bit confusing to some investors, but keep in mind that management had been positioning itself to sell the Sunoco retail business before the Susser acquisition. Energy Transfer Partners is still acting like it will divest itself of those operations in good time, and it will presumably use the capital generated by that sale to expand its natural-gas operations. Besides, Energy Transfer Partners investors can afford to wait, considering its outperformance in 2014 with an 18% return and a 5.8% dividend yield based on current prices. Jeff Reeves