The Environmental Protection Agency will announce Monday its proposed regulations to reduce carbon emissions at power plants, which the president insisted during his weekly radio address Saturday would improve public health.

President Barack Obama did not give specific details to the new rules but did boast that "in just the first that these standards go into effect, up to 100,000 asthma attacks and 2,100 heart attacks will be avoided -- and those numbers will go up from there."

"Today, about 40 percent of America's carbon pollution comes from power plants. But right now, there are no national limits to the amount of carbon pollution that existing plants can pump into the air we breathe. None," Obama said. "We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury, sulfur and arsenic that power plants put in our air and water. But they can dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into the air. It's not smart, it's not safe and it doesn't make sense."

According to The Washington Post, sources with close ties to the changes have said the energy sector would see a reduction in carbon emissions during the course of the next two decades. It would also be flexible on state regulators and utility companies trying to meet the federal targets.

The president's recorded address at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington on Friday was the first of a number of phases planned to get the American public behind the White House's climate proposal.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is expected to deliver the announcement Monday and will be followed by a call between President Obama and advocacy groups, which the American Lung Association organized.

Soot and other particulates found in the air caused from carbon emissions are linked to heart and lung disease, an issue the president and EPA hope to solve with the new regulations, The Post reported.

However, business groups, the coal industry and GOP officials such as Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., have argued against the EPA and White House's regulation efforts, citing consumer prices skyrocketing and minimal change actually occurring.

"We all want clean air and clean water," Enzi admitted in a weekly Republican radio address. "We don't want costly regulations that make little or no difference, that are making things less affordable. Republicans want electricity and gas when you need it at a price you can afford."

Michael Brune, the Sierra Club's executive director, praised the Obama administration's efforts and initiatives to bring down carbon emission rates to combat the effects of global warming. The president has already imposed carbon regulations on cars and trucks.

"Without a doubt, it is historic that we're having carbon pollution being (regulated) in a way that will accelerate a transition from coal to cleaner energy sources over time," Brune said. "That is profound."