Why not let what mineral interest that is still left, not registered, revert to the current surface owner and have 10 year prescription  ???? Why the state ????

Wrong solution to facilitate the need to eliminate complex title problems of multiple l owners in tracts held in perpetuity.  Arkansas requires a separate tax roll and assessment of severed non-producing minerals. Last time I worked in Arkansas I believe it was ten cents/mineral acre each year.  If taxes were not paid the minerals they were then owned by the State and only the owner could buy them from the state. I became friends with the Director of the Arkansas Minerals Leasing Division. He was frustrated by the policy at that time by not leasing state owned minerals even if a surface exclusion clause and pooling only was contained in the lease.

The Arkansas Democrat Newspaper interviewed a senator from Russellville and yours truly on the millions in bonus payments the state was missing out on.  Clinton was governor at the time running against Sheffield Nelson.  The interview did not put the governor in a good light.  About a week after the article was published I was having a late lunch after buying  leases at "Kelly's Grill" in Bald Knob. There was only one other customer finishing his lunch and the owner introduced me to Bill Clinton.  He asked me to vote for him and I said i was not about to vote for him.  When he asked why my reply was I was a native of Mississippi.  He asked me what I was doing in his state.  I told him spending millions of dollars among his constituents working for an oil company.  I explained the problem I was having acquiring state leases. He must have realized who I was and things went down hill from there.

Some states such as Nebraska have a 23 year abandoned mineral statute that may be a better model to encourage and not deter development.  Every 23 years in order to maintain ownership of severed minerals, the state requires the owner to either lease the minerals or file an affidavit of record claiming ownership if the minerals are non-producing.  Failure to comply can result in the surface owner filing suit against the owner to acquire and there is no recourse if the owner is delinquent after filing the court action.  Now that is fair to everyone and as it should be rather than owning minerals until the end of time.

I would be surprised if such a bill would ever pass the Mississippi House of Representatives, even if it passed in the Senate (which it didn't, of course).  The problem with Mississippi is that it's often impossible to be certain who owns the minerals, even with a search back to the patent.  Louisiana's 10-year "reversion to the surface" statute seems to be a logical approach and clears up much of the uncertainty.