"The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it. That's why, over the past six years, we've done more than ever before to combat climate change, from the way we produce energy, to the way we use it."

One of the goals of the Renewable Fuel Standard was to lower greenhouse gas emissions and in the previous six years the President referred to, biofuel production and consumption has increased and displaced more finite fossil fuels from the nation's transportation fuel mix.

As we've mentioned on countless occasions on this blog, biofuels like ethanol produce on average 44 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline. In 2013, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports some 2.44 billion gallons of gasoline was consumed.

Using the EIA's CO2 emissions formula and assuming all gasoline consumed contained 10 percent ethanol, ethanol would have prevented 766,571 metric tons of CO2, which is the equivalent of removing 161,383 cars from Minnesota's roads for a year (according to the EPA's greenhouse equivalencies calculator).