At this point, anyone following the U.S. energy sector understands just how important logistics is. Costs associated with moving our bountiful crude oil and natural gas around are the No. 1 determinant of price.

Infrastructure bottlenecks, line breaks and other hindrances have a huge effect on what end-users and consumers pay for various energy commodities. And while crude-by-rail and new pipelines have alleviated some of the bottlenecks, the Jones Act — a piece of legislation from the 1920s — is still causing headaches for some firms trying to ship and move crude oil.

But the Jones Act isn’t going anywhere.

Congress and the U.S. government continue to think the Jones Act is necessary to protect jobs and our maritime industry. So all is lost, right?

Wrong. There are ways for investors to profit from the act and our continued need for more energy infrastructure.

The Problem with the Jones Act

Written by isolationist lawmakers back in the 1920s, the Jones Act was designed to protect the nation’s shipping industry from foreign competitors and ensure that the nation continued with its strong naval presence. The heart of the law states that all vessels shipping cargo between two locations in the U.S. be built here in America as well as be majority owned by U.S. citizens or companies and have at least 75% of its crew to be U.S. citizens.

Over its history, the Jones Act hasn’t resulted in much disturbance to the broad U.S. economy aside higher prices for goods in Alaska and Hawaii. However, with surging crude oil production from places like Bakken and Eagle Ford, the Jones Act is proving to be problematic.

In order to work around several pipeline bottlenecks, crude-by-barge has become a way of life for many in the energy sector. Tank barges are being used to move rail-shipped crude oil from North Dakota and Texas to terminals along the Mississippi River and in the East Coast.

Inland and coastal tank barging takes natural gas or crude oil and transports it to Gulf Coast refineries. By doing this, refiners and other energy producers are starting to get squeezed by the higher costs associated with the Jones Act.

Currently, using a Jones-Act-approved vessel to transport crude oil runs about $2 per barrel for the short trip along the Gulf Coast and around $7 per barrel from Texas to the Northeast. All in all, the cost to rent a Jones Act tanker barge is around $21,000 per day — or about three times the price of a comparable foreign-flag ship. Tanker ships cost around $100,000 per day.

Those extra costs are really starting to add up, and some analysts predict that they could be a huge problem if and when the U.S. begins exporting crude oil to Europe. After all, you need to get the crude to the East Coast from Texas first, and there really isn’t any pipeline infrastructure heading in that direction.

Some refiners like Valero (VLO) and Marathon Petroleum (MPC) have actually begun sending crude to refineries in Canada on foreign-flagged vessels to be processed before importing the refined-crude back into the U.S. to save on shipping costs.

And despite the companies trying to skirt the rules, the Jones Act most likely will be here to stay.

Previous efforts to repeal or change the Jones Act have failed, while both Republicans and Democrats have expressed their support for the law and the job benefits it provides.

The latest round of support came from Senator Mary Landrieu — head of the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee — who criticized President Obama for hinting at changing the act. Landrieu was quoted as saying that “Waiving the Jones Act literally hands over work to foreign shippers.”

Two Jones Act Stocks

The Jones Act is proving to be a headache and hassle for some energy stocks, but others are being to profit handsomely from the isolationist law. The two biggest winners are Trinity Industries (TRN) and Kirby (KEX).

Investors have flocked to Trinity and TRN stock over the last few years — mostly because of its railcar building and leasing operations. Crude-by-rail shipping continues to surge. However, Trinity is one of the country’s largest builders of inland and coastal tank barges.

Trinity’s barge business is the firm’s second-largest and also continues to see rising demand. For its latest quarter, TRN’s barge operations received $124 million in new orders, which helped increase its backlog to $466.7 million. It also helped TRN improve its earnings by a 94% year-over-year.

Meanwhile, TRN stock remains cheap at a P/E of just 7.

While TRN builds the barges, KEX owns them. In fact, Kirby is the largest domestic tank barge operator, with a fleet of 1,000 different barges, tankers and tugboats — many of which are Jones Act compliant. That position as the country’s biggest barge shipper continues to work well for KEX, with 95% of its total fleet leased out.

That high demand for its barges has actually prompted KEX to order an additional 830,000 barrels’ worth of new barge capacity this year. Those additional ships should increase its fleet by 4.7%. Already, many of those new ships have found users, and the additional capacity should help KEX increase its profits.

Not that KEX needs much help in that area. For its latest quarter, KEX report another record profit and revenues.

KEX stock isn’t super-cheap at a P/E of 26. But as the premier barge player, KEX deserves the slight premium.

The Bottom Line: The Jones Act is very much here to stay. And while it may be a huge hassle for some energy stocks, both TRN and KEX will continue to make hay on the maritime law.

As of this writing, Aaron  Levitt was long TRN and MPC.