From the traditional and for a long time mainly agreed point of view of the German Federal Constitutional Court, the Federal Administration of German Federal waterways laid down in Art. 89 (2) of the German Constitution (Basic Law) extends solely to the waterways as transport routes. Therefore, according to existing law, the Federal Administration is still, basically, limited to maintaining the inland waterways, as transport media, in a condition required for navigation whereas the German Länder authorities are mainly responsible for the achievement of the Environmental objectives outlined in Art. 4 of the Water Framework Directive. The following paper argues that there is no need anymore to limit the administrative powers of the Federal Administration to the waterways as transport routes, since the Federal Government now has, as a result of the Federalism Reform of 2006, concurrent legislative competence with regard to the water (industry and quality) regime. On this basis, the author briefly analyses the existing legislative framework with a focus on the recent amendments of the Water Industry Act (Wasserhaushaltsgesetz) that led to an important extension of the tasks of the Federal Administration concerning the ecologic quality of German Federal waterways. Nevertheless, the paper calls for a further reform of the existing legislative framework that allows an integrated achievement of the Environmental objectives outlined in the Water Framework Directive.