The papers of Maryland Senator Paul Bailey consist mostly of reports and correspondence. Although Rep. Bailey had two different runs in the Maryland Senate, first from 1947-1954 and again from 1967-1974, the papers of this collection only cover his second tenure, mostly from 1969 to 1974.

A bulk of the collection is concerning the successful fight to stop the Steuart Petroleum Company's construction of an oil refinery in St. Mary's County in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Senator Bailey opposed the construction of most heavy industry in environmentally pristine Southern Maryland, and found in ally for this cause in the Patuxent River Naval Air Station (Pax River NAS), who also opposed industry on the grounds that polluted air, a deep water port, and the establishment of a Foreign Trade Zone would hinder the operation of the Naval Air Base. In addition to fighting the refinery by way of sponsoring a bill to halt construction of oil refineries in St. Mary's County (this bill passed the Senate unanimously), a County-wide referendum in July of 1974 also went against the refinery by a margin of 2 to 1. The Steuart Petroleum Company, which already operated in St. Mary's County, was responsible for an oil spill in 1970, and this greatly hampered their efforts to sway popular opinion in their favor for the establishment of a Foreign Trade Zone and construction of an oil refinery. Although much of the material in the collection is related to the fight against the refinery, pro-refinery points of view are also represented, most notably in a short comic book distributed by Steuart Petroleum (Box 4, Folder 20).

The papers contain a lot of material concerning pollution in general, as well as an unsuccessful fight to halt the construction of the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Point. Other topics include the 1970 amendments to the Potomac River Basin Compact (Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the District of Columbia had established an Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin). A large topical file covers a variety of issues related to Southern Maryland and St. Mary's County.